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What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed. |
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| 🦋 |
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15 | 3.71% |
| 🦇 |
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115 | 28.47% |
| 🪰 |
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12 | 2.97% |
| 🐦 |
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67 | 16.58% |
| dragonfly |
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94 | 23.27% |
| 🦟 |
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14 | 3.47% |
| 🐝 |
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87 | 21.53% |
| Total: | 404 votes | ||
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bedpan posted:yep. acknowledging that it was possible for Russia to win was a credibility and career destroying event. which is both a crazy thing and totally understandable Granted, I don't really think there is a way to possible to have a "centrist" position on the war since the data is so contradictory without ending up in a no-man's land where you just kind of piss off everyone. On one hand if you stray from the NATO line even a bit, you are f'ed, but at he same time trying to find a middle ground between the two narratives probably isn't going to lead to an accurate assessment either.
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Apr 11, 2024 15:51
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The Boxers were evil luddites
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Apr 11, 2024 15:51
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VoicesCanBe posted:Yeah Russia has technically been launching an "offensive" since October but it's in the form of smaller scale positional fighting. And the purpose is basically to not give Ukraine time to build up reserves. Because they always have to commit more to the defensive lines. You can sometimes hear some rumblings in the western media about how effective russia's retrofitted soviet bombs are causing damage to the ukranian lines but its very muted. Actual ukranian sources mention how they are devastating not just the front lines, but the lines just behind them where ukranian units muster. Units are getting devastated before even reaching the front line. I think the news that the political units dont even want to do blocking duty is probably accurate, since even units in the rear are getting blown up
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Apr 11, 2024 15:52
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bedpan posted:Charles George Gordon got a sweet nickname out of it though He got his name for the Taiping, though he was at the burning of the Summer Palace in the Second Opium War. "We accordingly went out, and after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a Vandal-like manner most valuable property, which would not be replaced for four millions....You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact these palaces were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army. Everybody was wild for plunder. You would scarcely conceive the magnificence of this residence, or the tremendous devastation the French have committed." and of course Sir Garnet was there too, "(The Chinese) drove us, much against our wish, into this war. In fact, they brought upon themselves our occupation of Pekin and the subsequent destruction of the Summer Palace. They are an inconsequent people, and it would seem as if their rulers never can learn wisdom from experience." The Boxer Rebellion was when the Kaiser gave the Hunnenrede, "A great task awaits you: you are to revenge the grievous injustice that has been done. The Chinese have overturned the law of nations; they have mocked the sacredness of the envoy, the duties of hospitality in a way unheard of in world history. It is all the more outrageous that this crime has been committed by a nation that takes pride in its ancient culture. Show the old Prussian virtue. Present yourselves as Christians in the cheerful endurance of suffering. May honor and glory follow your banners and arms. Give the whole world an example of manliness and discipline. Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German." DJJIB-DJDCT has issued a correction as of 15:57 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 15:53
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Cao Ni Ma posted:You can sometimes hear some rumblings in the western media about how effective russia's retrofitted soviet bombs are causing damage to the ukranian lines but its very muted. Yeah, it is also why they are talking about having to send in reserves nearly continuously just because the attrition is so high even if the brigade is staying in the same place. The glide kits for the Russians aren't punishingly expensive and they have plenty of bombs, it doesn't seem like that week were the Ukrainians claimed that 12-15 SU-34s were shot down in a week made much of a difference in tempo. (It is kind of odd it was just that one week too). A few days ago there was also a giant claim about Russian air bases being slammed and no one could find a real damage from satellite data. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 15:59 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 15:55
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its fun reading the GBS thread where Russia is still losing thousands of men and hundreds of tanks for every foot of ukrainian soil
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Apr 11, 2024 15:58
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The Rules Based International Order were some very bad boys in China, I'm sure you already knew, "In general I mean: politics and religion shouldn’t be mixed together. Should it happen, not only politics, but also religion will be spoiled... Undoubtedly, many Chinese have been captured; taking into the account the limited fighting ability of Chinese troops it should be admitted; but so far we haven’t heard that Chinese prisoners had been anywhere taken into custody (...) Herr von Levetzow says: ‘I have experienced a war as well, and the soldiers may have behaved in a similar way, too.’ That happens. But in the previous wars, I believe, it didn’t happen that the supreme commander had said in advance: ‘Pardon will not be given.’" Germany and the Boxer Uprising in China, Jan Kocvar, Military History Institute in Prague
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Apr 11, 2024 15:58
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DJJIB-DJDCT posted:The Rules Based International Order were some very bad boys in China, I'm sure you already knew, *tells the soldiers to not give pardon* I don't know how all of these prisoners got shot!
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Apr 11, 2024 15:59
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Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ftw
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Apr 11, 2024 16:04
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Glide bombs are one of the major changes in this war but they got rolled out so slowly that it's hardly noticed, at the start of the war it was SU-25 and Helicopters lobbing rockets from maximum distance.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:06
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WoodrowSkillson posted:its fun reading the GBS thread where Russia is still losing thousands of men and hundreds of tanks for every foot of ukrainian soil It's fascinating because the actual propaganda outlets moved on like 8 months ago. It's been a very pessimistic picture in western media.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:06
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WoodrowSkillson posted:its fun reading the GBS thread where Russia is still losing thousands of men and hundreds of tanks for every foot of ukrainian soil It's really hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who is just immune to physical reality and has no interest in learning anything, but I feel like the way these people think must be some kind of weird assumption that the Russian state is overwhelmingly powerful enough to completely erase any kind of information coming out about their imminent collapse and replace it with what we've actually seen in the way of a rebuilt army and reinvigorated state and society at large. Like Russia has some kind of all encompassing propaganda apparatus that just makes it impossible to believe anything other than what some loving weirdo NAFO losers on the Internet insist is actually happening, I guess.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:07
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I saw some suggestion that a large scale bombing campaign is getting started on Kharkov? The strikes are knocking out power plants, but I assume this could be a preparation for a larger ground offensive?
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Apr 11, 2024 16:14
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bedpan posted:*tells the soldiers to not give pardon* "Soon after the trial, the three officials were taken to a spot near the southwest corner of the city wall, and there, in the presence of all the foreign soldiers, they themselves were beheaded. According to a contemporary newspaper account, the executions were a spectacular affair, one that, it must be emphasized, was carried out in a Chinese fashion by Chinese swordsmen. Allied authorities were led to modify their preferred form of execution (firing squads) apparently because they believed that the Chinese thought the foreign form a minor punishment." “Therefore, when a Boxer army retreats to such a city as Liangsianghsien and holds a new position there, then we may assume that the few ‘peaceful Chinese’ who remained in the city under such circumstances are to be consid- ered to a certain degree accomplices of the Boxers. Even the Chinese knows well: ‘Together captured, together hanged.’ So why did he stay there? [. . . ] But the war generalizes.” On 11 September 1900, both Hoepfner’s battalions of marine infantry, accompanied by Indian cavalry, surrounded and conquered a small city of Liangxiang held by Chinese troops and the “Boxers”. Accordingly to Susanne Kuß, all adult males were summarily executed, and the city was burned. The Germans alone launched like 50 of those expeditions, to give you an idea. The Japanese and Russians were operating in huge regions of northern China and going even harder . DJJIB-DJDCT has issued a correction as of 16:25 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 16:19
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Lostconfused posted:I saw some suggestion that a large scale bombing campaign is getting started on Kharkov? The strikes are knocking out power plants, but I assume this could be a preparation for a larger ground offensive? There's been a focus on bombing Kharkov for a couple of months, plus iirc there is a buildup of troops in that direction, just beyond the Russian border. If there's a big arrow offensive coming, it's likely from that direction and not in Donetsk or near Kupiansk (and certainly not from Zaporizhzhia that's where all the land mines are after all) However, I'm still not convinced it's happening any time soon.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:35
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bedpan posted:Charles George Gordon got a sweet nickname out of it though Pretty sure he was killed by the Mahdi long before the expedition?
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Apr 11, 2024 16:38
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sullat posted:Pretty sure he was killed by the Mahdi long before the expedition? He was in the Arrow War (2nd Opium) and Taiping, he was killed by the Mohammedans in '85.   “Mirage.” General Gordon.... “What is it that I seem to see Across the sand waste? Is it the quick gleam Of English steel, or but a desert-dream? Help—or that last illusion of distress, The mocking Mirage of the wilderness?” Gordon! A name to gild our island story, Opulent yet in many a noble name, With lustre brighter than mere statecraft's fame, More radiant than the warrior's glittering glory. Such lesser lights eclipse them in the fine Sun-glow of selfless valour such as thine, Soldier whose sword, like Galahad's, was not used To hew out honour, but to champion right; Plan-shaper who, in council as in fight, Wast endlessly resourceful, yet refused, Death-snared, an easy flight!  The full knowledge now available makes it clear that Gordon's appointment was a risky experiment—that his judgment was not equal to his nobility of character—but the months and months of procrastination and vacillation, and the inadequacy of the relieving force when dispatched, cannot be explained away. It was just one of those situations which warranted the old gibe against Gladstone's "three courses." There were moments, and this was one of the most searching, in which he was mentally incapable of "seeing his duty, a dead sure thing" and going for it "there and then" in the way in which plain men with plain minds would have done.  Judas despairing died, his guilt confessed, But had he lived in this our age and city, He surely would have figured with the best Upon a Christ Memorial Committee.  Khartoum! Monday, January 26, 1885. Friday, September 2, 1898. DJJIB-DJDCT has issued a correction as of 16:55 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 16:45
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https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1778361472893980888 It's called negotiate a peace settlement ffs If Hamas had even a fraction of the international support Ukraine has received in these 2+ years they'd be occupying Tel Aviv by now.
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Apr 11, 2024 16:57
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sullat posted:Pretty sure he was killed by the Mahdi long before the expedition? yeah I was totally wrong DJJIB-DJDCT posted:He got his name for the Taiping, though he was at the burning of the Summer Palace in the Second Opium War.
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Apr 11, 2024 17:03
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VoicesCanBe posted:https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1778361472893980888 No sorry this is great for the economy. Keep up the good work Ukraine
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Apr 11, 2024 17:07
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Zodium posted:intelligence is multifaceted and a lot of work has gone into breaking it down, but in the end, all the facets correlate. that's the positive manifold. and it's one of the most theoretically frustrating things to me, personally, because it really throws a wrench in my gibsonian gears and I still don't have a good answer. but it is something distinct. it is methodologically sound, general, heritable, independent of ses; it exists. it's just not very important. the problem is exactly that society places too much value on intelligence such that things of merit must require intelligence, e.g., chess playing lurker guy feels attacked and compelled to defend chess as intelligent by the suggestion that performance is overwhelmingly driven by a particular type of practice. FWIW I agree with you (and also Scrree, esp. their 3 enumerated points). To the extent that I've tried thinking about it, I end up with intelligence as a moderating variable; it can both reduce the relative amount of practice necessary to achieve a particular proficiency level, and it can allow for differentials in observed proficiency levels for the same quantity/quality of practice. But it's marginal, and exposure/treatment/practice is what drives competence. But guess what pseudoscience both serves as the priests of cybernetic capitalism AND has a raging, never-ending hard-on for over-emphasizing marginal effects?
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Apr 11, 2024 17:12
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Lostconfused posted:I saw some suggestion that a large scale bombing campaign is getting started on Kharkov? The strikes are knocking out power plants, but I assume this could be a preparation for a larger ground offensive? I dont believe so. Russian missile and drone strikes have been launched against targets across the Ukriane with regularity for last few weeks. For example: the Trypilska thermal power plant south of Kiev has just been reported destroyed by hypersonic missiles. Kharkov is only 25 kilometers from the border. It gets much less early warning time of incoming drones/missiles compared to Kiev or Lvov. It also has fewer air defenses than cities further west. It is getting hit harder and more frequently because it simply is more vulnerable. I just can't see an offensive focused on taking Kharkov. It is a city of 1.5 million with a metro size of 3222 sq km. This vastly dwarfs every city where urban combat has taken place so far. OhFunny has issued a correction as of 17:19 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 17:17
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Organ Fiend posted:If my posts on a dead gay internet forum help you or anyone else get through the day, then I'm happy they did. Good post, and good previous post re: values vs. reason. What you are seeing across different disciplines here applies to the field of complex systems engineering too. For example, it has been shown that any system whose purpose is to regulate or otherwise control a complex phenomenon must be *at least* as complex as the phenomenon it is meant to control. see e.g. Ashby, W. Ross. 1991. “Requisite Variety and Its Implications for the Control of Complex Systems.” In Facets of Systems Science, edited by George J. Klir, 405–17. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0718-9_28. edit: hosed up DOI captainbananas has issued a correction as of 17:23 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 17:20
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its funny to me because its been clear for years now the only reason ukraine has centralized services like power is because russia was letting them. in summary,VoicesCanBe posted:It's called negotiate a peace settlement ffs
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Apr 11, 2024 17:27
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mlmp08 posted:“Russia hosed up, but they can win” has been the stance since day one that gets you marked as the combination NAFO-bell and Tankie-hut. Ok I liked this one gj.
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Apr 11, 2024 17:30
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just felt like reading the wikipedia article for the battle of avdiivka again and yep, still says russia lost 47,000 troops and ukraine lost less than 100
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Apr 11, 2024 17:30
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jpmeyer posted:just felt like reading the wikipedia article for the battle of avdiivka again and yep, still says russia lost 47,000 troops and ukraine lost less than 100 Ukrainians tactics and strategy will influence nato's next generation much as German generals did
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Apr 11, 2024 17:39
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Delta-Wye posted:its funny to me because its been clear for years now the only reason ukraine has centralized services like power is because russia was letting them. in summary, I'm not so sure. It's true that Russia could have bombed much harder right out the gate, but Ukraine also had a pretty extensive air defense network from the Soviet era back in 2022. Plus, Russia has been improving their bombing capabilities in these 2 years. I'm not sure if they would've had the capability to lean so hard on the glide bombs back then, for example. But Ukraine's air defenses at this point are largely exhausted
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Apr 11, 2024 17:46
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OhFunny posted:I dont believe so. Russian missile and drone strikes have been launched against targets across the Ukriane with regularity for last few weeks. Wit the northern part of the eastern front more active, there is probably more supplies and unit using Kharkov as a logistical hub too making the city a bit more target rich.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:20
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https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1778414844602892723/history Time to see if Europe's is enthusiastic about enforcing conscription on Ukraine's behest.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:20
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Good.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:21
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VoicesCanBe posted:I'm not so sure. It's true that Russia could have bombed much harder right out the gate, but Ukraine also had a pretty extensive air defense network from the Soviet era back in 2022. Plus, Russia has been improving their bombing capabilities in these 2 years. I'm not sure if they would've had the capability to lean so hard on the glide bombs back then, for example. they spent two years navel gazing and destroying substations. i am confident they could have, at any time, chosen to destroy power stations instead
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Apr 11, 2024 18:29
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1778414844602892723/history Hell yes, they finally got it done. They worked HARD! https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1778023718028968028
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Apr 11, 2024 18:31
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democracy at its finest
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Apr 11, 2024 18:35
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Officer Sandvich posted:Hell yes, they finally got it done. They worked HARD! worked HARD to make sure that only the poor are drafted
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Apr 11, 2024 18:48
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1778414844602892723/history I don't even think they have the capacity to do it if they wanted to. Certainly not at sufficient scale to make an impact.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:56
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VoicesCanBe posted:I don't even think they have the capacity to do it if they wanted to. Certainly not at sufficient scale to make an impact. They just got "enough equipment to equip a brigade" transferred to them. Surely they have enough.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:58
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Flournival Dixon posted:It's really hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who is just immune to physical reality and has no interest in learning anything, but I feel like the way these people think must be some kind of weird assumption that the Russian state is overwhelmingly powerful enough to completely erase any kind of information coming out about their imminent collapse and replace it with what we've actually seen in the way of a rebuilt army and reinvigorated state and society at large. It's bizarre isn't it? When even the NYT and Politico and whatever other US state media is saying Ukraine is in dire straits, where does this alternate reality come from? I guess I get that they have no real conception of what the war is really like or the scale of Russia's military capability but still it's just bizarre. The answer is probably that the war is about cool pics and videos of Russian poo poo blowing up and Ukraine itself is irrelevant.
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Apr 11, 2024 19:05
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OhFunny posted:I dont believe so. Russian missile and drone strikes have been launched against targets across the Ukriane with regularity for last few weeks. The fact that the Russians just walked away from Kharkov in 2022 rather than try to hold it through brutal urban fighting speaks volumes about not only the clear eyed assessment of Russian capabilities that was (finally) happening, but Russia's overall casualty aversion and desire to limit Ukrainian civilian losses A truly genocidal army unconcerned with losses could have just collapsed entire city blocks into fortresses and held out indefinitely, especially with friendly territory so close by
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Apr 11, 2024 19:27
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my bony fealty posted:It's bizarre isn't it? When even the NYT and Politico and whatever other US state media is saying Ukraine is in dire straits, where does this alternate reality come from? If you just read headlines you still get a steady diet of 'Russia lost 100 tanks and 5,000 troops in one day' and 'Russia loses another ship in the Black Sea' and 'Ukraine shoots down ten airplanes in one week'. If you have no concept of the scale of industrial war and also just blindly believe propaganda numbers because you've been raised that western media is 'free' and 'objective' its easy to come to the conclusion that Ukraine is winning. Even the stories about Ukraine being in dire straits usually have a few lines about how some upcoming promised delivery of supplies is going to turn the whole thing around. Theres also the fact that anyone still following the war made up their mind on the inevitable outcome years ago. Information that runs counter to that is just so much noise to be ignored.
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Apr 11, 2024 19:33
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