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WorldsStongestNerd
Apr 28, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
End stage capitalism and global warming causing tension and a resurgence of fascism that causes Hitler 2 electric buggaloo.

The US should be OK.

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WorldsStongestNerd
Apr 28, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
To be serious for a moment, looking at past European and world history, as well as the current trajectory of the world, those 2 million Syrians in Germany are going into the oven sometime in the coming years and it's terrifying to contemplate.

Bulbo
Nov 4, 2012

Grouchio posted:


France: Up to knees in Islamic terrorism creek without a paddle, heavy recession, upcoming heated election between unlikable left and fascist right.


The IMF is predicting a GDP growth of 1.6% for 2016, so no recession yet. The rest is sadly true.

feller
Jul 5, 2006


Bulbo posted:

The IMF is predicting a GDP growth of 1.6% for 2016, so no recession yet. The rest is sadly true.

Oh good! They're never wrong

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



WorldsStrongestNerd posted:

To be serious for a moment, looking at past European and world history, as well as the current trajectory of the world, those 2 million Syrians in Germany are going into the oven sometime in the coming years and it's terrifying to contemplate.

Eh, Germany's done worse.

T8R
Aug 9, 2005
Yes, I would like some tea!

Bulbo posted:

The IMF is predicting a GDP growth of 1.6% for 2016, so no recession yet. The rest is sadly true.

The planet will never stop growing!

TomViolence
Feb 19, 2013

PLEASE ASK ABOUT MY 80,000 WORD WALLACE AND GROMIT SLASH FICTION. PLEASE.

I'm as big a doomsayer as the next man, but I wonder how much of this supposedly apocalyptic chaos is real and how much of it is just a result of the media, politicians and the establishment in general losing control of the popular narrative. Nobody trusts them anymore and with an increasingly multipolar and interconnected world, nobody has to anymore either. So we have no more unified songsheet to read off and there is no meticulously constructed monomyth to control the conversation and everything becomes confusing and frightening because while we have vast amounts of information at our disposal we only ever see one small piece of the bigger beast. The volume of information is growing exponentially with each passing day too without human intervention and so even if a concerted effort was made to interpret and analyse even just relevant and pertinent information there literally aren't enough minds to collaboratively process it.

So while terror attacks are down and mass shootings are happening at the same rate they have done for years and the cops aren't extrajudicially killing any more or less young black males than they have historically and capitalism continues its zombielike lurching from crisis to crisis, we collectively poo poo ourselves in incomprehension.

Revelation 2-13
May 13, 2010

Pillbug
Overall you're still more likely to die by getting hit by literal lightning than in a terrorist attack, even if we include the killings by groups in, for example, Africa, which really are more like civil war groups, rather than actual terror groups (even if it's politically convenient to define them as such). I wonder how much could have been done, if the media/politicians spent the same amount of resources on something that was actually dangerous (cars, cancer, whatever, lightning strikes), instead of the 'fear du jour' of terrorism.

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

TomViolence posted:

I'm as big a doomsayer as the next man, but I wonder how much of this supposedly apocalyptic chaos is real and how much of it is just a result of the media, politicians and the establishment in general losing control of the popular narrative. Nobody trusts them anymore and with an increasingly multipolar and interconnected world, nobody has to anymore either. So we have no more unified songsheet to read off and there is no meticulously constructed monomyth to control the conversation and everything becomes confusing and frightening because while we have vast amounts of information at our disposal we only ever see one small piece of the bigger beast. The volume of information is growing exponentially with each passing day too without human intervention and so even if a concerted effort was made to interpret and analyse even just relevant and pertinent information there literally aren't enough minds to collaboratively process it.

So while terror attacks are down and mass shootings are happening at the same rate they have done for years and the cops aren't extrajudicially killing any more or less young black males than they have historically and capitalism continues its zombielike lurching from crisis to crisis, we collectively poo poo ourselves in incomprehension.

To sum it up the things many people think are getting worse aren't but their fear is feeding the actual terrible trends such as political polarization/dysfunction. Which is actually far more frightening than if the real problems were only shootings, immigration, terrorism etc.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Tesseraction posted:

Shinzo Abe has done basically everything possible to rescind the apology of the 1990s socialist government who apologised for the crimes of Imperial Japan against the countries of the world and especially China and Korea.

He's also pushing to remove the pacifism clause from the Japanese Constitution that previously blocked Japan from using their military for anything other than self-defence. People have protested this very vigorously, including at least two (that I recall) self-immolation protests.

Also wage stagnation, declining birthrate, legal sale of paedophilic materials, continued televising of Naruto, still many hurdles for women in society - especially the workplace, economy circling the shitter but not necessarily the drain.

Japan's birthrate has been slowly increasing for 15 years now, more women have entered the workforce under Abe's term than ever before, he has not rescinded any apologies, and has even issued a new one to Korea despite his obvious personal beliefs, and the constitutional referendum continues to not happen despite the LDP having the nominal ability to do it because of public opposition, and despite the constant baying of western anti-China hawks who want it changed. Abe's term can be summed up as another 4 years of the status quo, with slight to moderate improvement despite the government's strenuous inaction

Also a woman just got elected mayor of Tokyo. Although she is probably a crypto-fascist. Not as bad as Shintaro at least

Naurto is pretty bad though

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Aug 6, 2016

unwantedplatypus
Sep 6, 2012
tbh I fully expect the immigration crisis to cause a genocide (on the immigrants) in one or more countries. Talk of exporting/forcing out the refugees is about as genuine as the Madagascar jewish colony.

Kurtofan
Feb 16, 2011

hon hon hon

TomViolence posted:

I'm as big a doomsayer as the next man, but I wonder how much of this supposedly apocalyptic chaos is real and how much of it is just a result of the media, politicians and the establishment in general losing control of the popular narrative. Nobody trusts them anymore and with an increasingly multipolar and interconnected world, nobody has to anymore either. So we have no more unified songsheet to read off and there is no meticulously constructed monomyth to control the conversation and everything becomes confusing and frightening because while we have vast amounts of information at our disposal we only ever see one small piece of the bigger beast. The volume of information is growing exponentially with each passing day too without human intervention and so even if a concerted effort was made to interpret and analyse even just relevant and pertinent information there literally aren't enough minds to collaboratively process it.

So while terror attacks are down and mass shootings are happening at the same rate they have done for years and the cops aren't extrajudicially killing any more or less young black males than they have historically and capitalism continues its zombielike lurching from crisis to crisis, we collectively poo poo ourselves in incomprehension.

Terror attacks are down? Is this a joke.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

Kurtofan posted:

Terror attacks are down? Is this a joke.

Nope. They genuinely are.

The 90s and the 2000s saw a shitton more, and more dangerous, terror attacks. Remember the London subway bombings? It's just that now you can watch the aftermath on youtube it's significantly easier for You The Consumer to poo poo yourself over what remains.

Kurtofan
Feb 16, 2011

hon hon hon

Ze Pollack posted:

Nope. They genuinely are.

The 90s and the 2000s saw a shitton more, and more dangerous, terror attacks. Remember the London subway bombings? It's just that now you can watch the aftermath on youtube it's significantly easier for You The Consumer to poo poo yourself over what remains.

Not in France. In those those two decades combined we had a grand total of 3 attacks with less than 30 casualties total.

In just 18 months we had over 200 dead, over 10 attacks, some of those involved coordinated assaults heavy weaponry, hostage taking and suicide bombing. and that's just in France, where several attempts had been thwarted also. Plus attacks in Belgium and Germany. In 18 months.

I googled London subway bombings and those attacks barely did any casualties.

Maybe terror attacks are down for Britain, but not for the rest of Europe.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

Kurtofan posted:

Not in France. In those those two decades combined we had a grand total of 3 attacks with less than 30 casualties total.

In just 18 months we had over 200 dead, over 10 attacks, some of those involved coordinated assaults heavy weaponry, hostage taking and suicide bombing. and that's just in France, where several attempts had been thwarted also. Plus attacks in Belgium and Germany. In 18 months.

I googled London subway bombings and those attacks barely did any casualties.

Maybe terror attacks are down for Britain, but not for the rest of Europe.

Yup. You got lucky. Your neighbors to the south and your neighbors across the channel got to enjoy the spectre of random death to send a message instead. The Basques and the IRA between them racked up quite an impressive body-count! ISIS and affiliates, by comparison, are some weak loving tea.

For obvious reasons, this is cold loving comfort to the dead. And it's no reason not to act. But for now, there are still old professionals who slipped through the cracks in Madrid and Dublin looking at the reports out of France and smirking to themselves about what an amateurish shitshow ISIS is.

"Hey, a bomb will go off in your building in half an hour."
"Oh whoops my watch is fast by twenty-five minutes, suckers."

khwarezm
Oct 26, 2010

Deal with it.

Ze Pollack posted:

Yup. You got lucky. Your neighbors to the south and your neighbors across the channel got to enjoy the spectre of random death to send a message instead. The Basques and the IRA between them racked up quite an impressive body-count! ISIS and affiliates, by comparison, are some weak loving tea.

For obvious reasons, this is cold loving comfort to the dead. And it's no reason not to act. But for now, there are still old professionals who slipped through the cracks in Madrid and Dublin looking at the reports out of France and smirking to themselves about what an amateurish shitshow ISIS is.

"Hey, a bomb will go off in your building in half an hour."
"Oh whoops my watch is fast by twenty-five minutes, suckers."

You know, I have been arguing that ISIS isn't all its cracked up to be, but I still think the situation is very different from the IRA and ETA and in a lot of ways ISIS is worse. For one their terrorism and warfare in Syria and Iraq is way beyond anything imaginable in Europe since World War 2 apart from maybe the Balkan conflict? A lot of the reason that the IRA had a high body count was because the troubles were so drat protracted, and even then the IRA resolutely avoided events as bloody as Paris and Nice. I know everybody is going to jump up and shout 'Omagh!' but its worth keeping in mind that events like that with such a high body count were as destructive to the IRA itself in terms of the public and international revulsion they caused and helped force them away from the course of violence. The Republican narrative on the Omagh bombing quickly turned into 'it was a splinter group, British intelligence allowed it happen, it was meant to be called in but there was a blunder, we apologize to the families of those killed, we condemn this use of violence etc etc'.

In contrast ISIS seems to get its kicks from being as violent and barbaric as possible and advertising that to the world. 2015 and 16 really have seen a huge spike in violence in Europe compared to the last 20 years and in France in particular.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

khwarezm posted:

You know, I have been arguing that ISIS isn't all its cracked up to be, but I still think the situation is very different from the IRA and ETA and in a lot of ways ISIS is worse. For one their terrorism and warfare in Syria and Iraq is way beyond anything imaginable in Europe since World War 2 apart from maybe the Balkan conflict? A lot of the reason that the IRA had a high body count was because the troubles were so drat protracted, and even then the IRA resolutely avoided events as bloody as Paris and Nice. I know everybody is going to jump up and shout 'Omagh!' but its worth keeping in mind that events like that with such a high body count were as destructive to the IRA itself in terms of the public and international revulsion they caused and helped force them away from the course of violence. The Republican narrative on the Omagh bombing quickly turned into 'it was a splinter group, British intelligence allowed it happen, it was meant to be called in but there was a blunder, we apologize to the families of those killed, we condemn this use of violence etc etc'.

In contrast ISIS seems to get its kicks from being as violent and barbaric as possible and advertising that to the world. 2015 and 16 really have seen a huge spike in violence in Europe compared to the last 20 years and in France in particular.

They definitely have the potential to become significantly worse. And ignoring that would be a terrible failure of government. But at the moment? They have yet to pull off any attack of note that didn't end with everyone involved with the attack dead or in prison. And when your talent pool's limited to people not just willing to martyr themselves, but who KNOW the inevitable result of their actions is death or prison?

Your organization is going to have some serious issues putting together any kind of long term threat. There are only so many suicidal fish in the sea.

As they currently are, ISIS-affiliated terrorism is scary as hell in the short term, and pretty much a non-issue long term. The question is what comes after them.

TomViolence
Feb 19, 2013

PLEASE ASK ABOUT MY 80,000 WORD WALLACE AND GROMIT SLASH FICTION. PLEASE.

This graph is what I was gonig off when I said terror attacks are down:



While it's true that there's been a teremendous spike in attacks this year (with more having happened since this graph was published), it's uncertain whether it's the beginning of a trend or just an anomaly.

ISIS itself seems to be something of an anomaly too. They're like some kind of orientalist feedback loop, where they do their best to embody the west's worst caricatures of Levantine muslims and project that image to the west in order to recruit opportunistic psychopaths and impressionable, disaffected youths, who then import their own violence and excess to the project to intensify the image of barbarity. It's quite telling that the ISIS ranks are filled with foreign jihadists who often have only the shallowest understanding of the religion they purport to fight for. Hopefully the intensification of violence indicates ISIS is lashing out in its death throes and its ability to project such power will soon end.

Grouchio
Aug 31, 2014

Sorry for the wait I'm going to update the OP now.

System Metternich
Feb 28, 2010

But what did he mean by that?

My hometown's doing pretty well so far op, thanks for asking. Low unemployment, lots of money in the coffers, no terrorist attacks and no refugees being put into ovens that I know of. Our parish priest's taking on another post next summer though, that's a bit sad.

C. Everett Koop
Aug 18, 2008
My town is trash the best hot dog place closed and Tinder is a wasteland so all is lost kill family/self/etc/etc

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

TomViolence posted:

I'm as big a doomsayer as the next man, but I wonder how much of this supposedly apocalyptic chaos is real and how much of it is just a result of the media, politicians and the establishment in general losing control of the popular narrative. Nobody trusts them anymore and with an increasingly multipolar and interconnected world, nobody has to anymore either. So we have no more unified songsheet to read off and there is no meticulously constructed monomyth to control the conversation and everything becomes confusing and frightening because while we have vast amounts of information at our disposal we only ever see one small piece of the bigger beast. The volume of information is growing exponentially with each passing day too without human intervention and so even if a concerted effort was made to interpret and analyse even just relevant and pertinent information there literally aren't enough minds to collaboratively process it.

So while terror attacks are down and mass shootings are happening at the same rate they have done for years and the cops aren't extrajudicially killing any more or less young black males than they have historically and capitalism continues its zombielike lurching from crisis to crisis, we collectively poo poo ourselves in incomprehension.

I think it's more complicated than that. Yes, it's true that the nature of contemporary media and politics is that it encourages fear, division and mistrust. However, it would be wrong to suggest that there are no objective changes in material conditions contributing to this rising sense of alarm. In particular, the declining economic fortunes of large parts of the first world can't be ignored or dismissed as an illusion any longer.

In advanced economies "between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in those same advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, or more than 540 million people". The same data reveals a correlation between declining economic fortunes and opposition to immigration and trade deals. And in America the white working class is experiencing a demographic collapse of unprecedented magnitude: "The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014." So I think it's fair to say that these heightened anxieties that the media and political system is exagerating or redirecting aren't just being created in a vacuum by the media or by politicians.

It's fair to say that often people get anxious about the wrong things, or they fixate on very bad solutions to their problems. But that doesn't mean the problems don't exist.

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy

khwarezm posted:

You know, I have been arguing that ISIS isn't all its cracked up to be, but I still think the situation is very different from the IRA and ETA and in a lot of ways ISIS is worse. For one their terrorism and warfare in Syria and Iraq is way beyond anything imaginable in Europe since World War 2 apart from maybe the Balkan conflict? A lot of the reason that the IRA had a high body count was because the troubles were so drat protracted, and even then the IRA resolutely avoided events as bloody as Paris and Nice. I know everybody is going to jump up and shout 'Omagh!' but its worth keeping in mind that events like that with such a high body count were as destructive to the IRA itself in terms of the public and international revulsion they caused and helped force them away from the course of violence. The Republican narrative on the Omagh bombing quickly turned into 'it was a splinter group, British intelligence allowed it happen, it was meant to be called in but there was a blunder, we apologize to the families of those killed, we condemn this use of violence etc etc'.

In contrast ISIS seems to get its kicks from being as violent and barbaric as possible and advertising that to the world. 2015 and 16 really have seen a huge spike in violence in Europe compared to the last 20 years and in France in particular.
Part of the reason is that these attacks are part of a recruitment strategy, it wants to get as many disaffected young muslims into their territory as possible. The % of people who actually get their kicks from these attacks is low, but it's become so cheap to travel internationally now, thanks to globalization, that you can use these attacks to pull bodies back into Syria. It's using the mass media to get their propaganda out to so many people, that it doesn't matter if your target audience, as a % of the people who see the propaganda, is so low. Hell, the people going to join ISIS are paying for it on their own dime, and so are the people doing the actual attacks. So from ISIS' perspective, all it does it take credit, keep pushing out internet material. Then these attacks just 'happen', and then people turn up at their doorstep to help fight for them. None of that would be possible without international trade and passenger networks, the internet, and the 24 hour news cycle.

Here's the real catch: Imagine it's not just fringe islamists. Imagine a civil war breaks out, somewhere else in the world, and they employ that same 'perspective', ie- use those same tools to get as many foreign fighters into their ranks as possible (not necessarily terrorism). Imagine you have one side in this civil war, with manpower & technical expertise arriving from all over the world, fighting the other side in the civil war, who doesn't. Who's has the advantage, the highest chance of winning?

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

rudatron posted:

Here's the real catch: Imagine it's not just fringe islamists. Imagine a civil war breaks out, somewhere else in the world, and they employ that same 'perspective', ie- use those same tools to get as many foreign fighters into their ranks as possible (not necessarily terrorism). Imagine you have one side in this civil war, with manpower & technical expertise arriving from all over the world, fighting the other side in the civil war, who doesn't. Who's has the advantage, the highest chance of winning?

Probably the natives, since they know the land better. Idiots from abroad will just get slaughtered, just like Vietnam.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

computer parts posted:

Probably the natives, since they know the land better. Idiots from abroad will just get slaughtered, just like Vietnam.
He said civil war, that kinda implies both sides are natives. One side just has additional bodies to throw at problems. That said, the post sorta seems to assume that the sides are otherwise equally matched, which doesn't have to be the case. Foreign volunteers could be required for one side to even stand a chance in the first place.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

rudatron posted:

Part of the reason is that these attacks are part of a recruitment strategy, it wants to get as many disaffected young muslims into their territory as possible. The % of people who actually get their kicks from these attacks is low, but it's become so cheap to travel internationally now, thanks to globalization, that you can use these attacks to pull bodies back into Syria. It's using the mass media to get their propaganda out to so many people, that it doesn't matter if your target audience, as a % of the people who see the propaganda, is so low. Hell, the people going to join ISIS are paying for it on their own dime, and so are the people doing the actual attacks. So from ISIS' perspective, all it does it take credit, keep pushing out internet material. Then these attacks just 'happen', and then people turn up at their doorstep to help fight for them. None of that would be possible without international trade and passenger networks, the internet, and the 24 hour news cycle.

Here's the real catch: Imagine it's not just fringe islamists. Imagine a civil war breaks out, somewhere else in the world, and they employ that same 'perspective', ie- use those same tools to get as many foreign fighters into their ranks as possible (not necessarily terrorism). Imagine you have one side in this civil war, with manpower & technical expertise arriving from all over the world, fighting the other side in the civil war, who doesn't. Who's has the advantage, the highest chance of winning?

I think the role of foreign fighters - especially from the West - in ISIS strategy is massively exaggerated. I think the bigger focus here is home front propaganda. Insofar as they want to influence western Muslims I think the idea is to whip up antiMuslim sentiment so that Muslim refugees are forced to remain in the caliphate where ISIS thinks they belong.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

A Buttery Pastry posted:

He said civil war, that kinda implies both sides are natives. One side just has additional bodies to throw at problems. That said, the post sorta seems to assume that the sides are otherwise equally matched, which doesn't have to be the case. Foreign volunteers could be required for one side to even stand a chance in the first place.

The South Vietnamese were natives too.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

computer parts posted:

The South Vietnamese were natives too.
Like I said, it also assumes the two sides are otherwise equally matched. As far as I know, the government in South Vietnam wasn't very popular, meaning North Vietnam had a clear advantage in terms of native support in the conflict.

khwarezm
Oct 26, 2010

Deal with it.
I'd have to wonder how much of an impact these foreign volunteers generally make. Like for ISIS right now its, what, 30,000 people in total? How does that compare against their local fighters? Most of the stuff I've heard makes it sound there not numerous enough compared to their foes, poorly trained, violent to a fault, have trouble speaking local languages and often find they aren't that into dying for the Caliphate when they can't charge their smartphone because American air-power just blew the power grid.

Going back to other famous foreign fighter situations like the Spanish Civil war and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan I've heard similar things about the foreign fighter contingents there. They certainly make good headlines, but I don't know if they are really making that much of a difference in actual warfare.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Like I said, it also assumes the two sides are otherwise equally matched. As far as I know, the government in South Vietnam wasn't very popular, meaning North Vietnam had a clear advantage in terms of native support in the conflict.

That's a pretty big understatement. The south Vietnamese government was actually pretty hated. Ho chi mihn enjoyed wild popularity across the whole of the country. He really cared about Vietnam and despite what America wanted to believe just wanted a free Vietnam that could forge it's own future. No colonialism, no imperialism, no Soviet domination; just Vietnam being Vietnam.

The southern government was run by extremely corrupt Catholics that had a bad habit of repressing Buddhists. If you weren't Catholic you weren't allowed to have any sort of leadership. Buddhists in high posts were removed which understandably pissed off the majority Buddhists. America was trying to forcibly Americanize the place, which meant ramming American business, corruption, and religion on the nation. The southern government worked closely with American businesses to sink those economic imperial tendrils in.

If memory serves the popular vote should have put Ho Chi Mihn in power by a landslide but America and the south just went "lol nope." Local southern forces were badly trained, few in number, and not too keen on the war. The American forces ended up fighting pretty much the entire nation's population by the end. It wasn't just home field advantage it was the fact that if America wanted to win it would be by exterminating the Vietnamese people. We were not wanted there and the south Vietnamese government did not have popular support. Hate is too weak a word.

Fojar38
Sep 2, 2011


Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia


also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->
Are we still trying to add to the OP?

Following massive stock crashes last year and ongoing capital flight, China's economy is in sharp decline and it shows no signs of easing as China's labor replacement rate went into the negative last year after 3 decades of ideal demographics. The Chinese Communist Party has responded by amping up nationalism and pushing in the South and East China Seas both to shore up legitimacy and because its window of strategic opportunity is closing. In addition, it is attempting to maintain headline GDP growth and employment with massive amounts of stimulus into sectors of the economy that are already zombies, driving up corporate debt to the point where it is now almost 300% of GDP, staving off a crash for now but making a future crash both more likely and more severe. Reforms that are necessary for slower but more sustainable growth are not happening, as they would require that the CCP liberalize the economy, giving up a not insignificant amount of its own power, plus deleveraging, which will cause a recession and an increase in unemployment.

China is a ticking time bomb and has the potential to plunge Asia into a depression, if not a war, and we will probably see something big happen over the next few years.

Ms Adequate
Oct 30, 2011

Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling



khwarezm posted:

I'd have to wonder how much of an impact these foreign volunteers generally make. Like for ISIS right now its, what, 30,000 people in total? How does that compare against their local fighters? Most of the stuff I've heard makes it sound there not numerous enough compared to their foes, poorly trained, violent to a fault, have trouble speaking local languages and often find they aren't that into dying for the Caliphate when they can't charge their smartphone because American air-power just blew the power grid.

Going back to other famous foreign fighter situations like the Spanish Civil war and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan I've heard similar things about the foreign fighter contingents there. They certainly make good headlines, but I don't know if they are really making that much of a difference in actual warfare.

I don't know if it's still current but I recall hearing a few months ago that a lot of westerners who went to join ISIS quickly grew disillusioned because they thought they'd be off fighting and dying heroically for the Caliphate, but we're all a bunch of flabby weaklings in the west so they got stuck doing the menial drudge work like digging latrines and cleaning the barracks and whatever. Foreign fighters are the most enthused by definition, but that doesn't mean they're well-trained or funded or anything, and a group like IS doesn't have the time or resources to train them up.

Spanish Civil War was a different kettle of fish though, they had people of many and varied levels of fighting prowess.

Furnaceface
Oct 21, 2004




Canada is anything but smooth sadly. Firstly the housing bubble is country wide, its just at its worst in BC. It has replaced oil as the dumb thing we hitch our economy on to. At its peak $100+/bbl, oil made up something like 14% of our GDP, the FIRE industry is up to about 13% right now and not showing any signs of slowing. This is bad because we dont really have much of anything left here to fill in when this goes poof. Manufacturing has moved largely back to the USA or to new cheap labour places like Mexico, most crown corporations have been sold off for a quick cash infusion, our healthcare system is bulging at the seams with bureaucratic bullshit and intentional mismanagement, and boomers are in control of basically every level of government and are dead set on loving up everything for the generations to come before they die.

I guess its still a very scenic country as long as you stick to the slowly shrinking protected areas that arent currently being converted into Mordor by the corrupt oil and mining industries. :shobon:

e: Oh yeah, we are now the worlds second largest supplier of arms to the middle east, behind only the USA. Because that will help world stability. :downs:

Furnaceface fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Aug 8, 2016

bagual
Oct 29, 2010

inconspicuous
Sometimes I believe it might just be inflated media hype making the world seem awful and scary, but I just can't shake off the feeling that we're living in a sort of belle epóque and that a big geopolitical conflagration may happen in say, a decade or so when authoritarian shitheels finally get their way on enough nations. On top of that there's global warming and impending resource exaustion. No idea if all of this means doom and gloom to humankind in general, but i guess lots of people are going to get seriously hosed.

unwantedplatypus
Sep 6, 2012

bagual posted:

but i guess lots of people are going to get seriously hosed.

history.txt

Furnaceface
Oct 21, 2004




bagual posted:

Sometimes I believe it might just be inflated media hype making the world seem awful and scary, but I just can't shake off the feeling that we're living in a sort of belle epóque and that a big geopolitical conflagration may happen in say, a decade or so when authoritarian shitheels finally get their way on enough nations. On top of that there's global warming and impending resource exaustion. No idea if all of this means doom and gloom to humankind in general, but i guess lots of people are going to get seriously hosed.

I know its going to seem hypocritical after my last post but its a perception thing. 20 years ago most of the news I got was local or provincial because it came from radio, TV or print media. The news itself really hasnt changed much. Whats changed is the amount and breadth of news we can now consume thanks to the internet. We just see and hear more of the bad news (because bad news still brings in more views/hits) from other places and do some weird mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that its a threat or bad here too, if only just in a matter of time.

Now that doesnt mean its all peachy and we can stop worrying, but it does need to be all taken in perspective. I think the only real worry I have is with this weird rise in support of fascism in many western nations. Of all the things in history to forget only to repeat, why this one? :argh:

unwantedplatypus
Sep 6, 2012

Furnaceface posted:

Now that doesnt mean its all peachy and we can stop worrying, but it does need to be all taken in perspective. I think the only real worry I have is with this weird rise in support of fascism in many western nations. Of all the things in history to forget only to repeat, why this one? :argh:

Because many people are willing and able to rationalize anything away so long as they can obtain some sort of emotional or physical satisfaction. In this case, the satisfaction of defeating a scapegoat.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Furnaceface posted:

I know its going to seem hypocritical after my last post but its a perception thing. 20 years ago most of the news I got was local or provincial because it came from radio, TV or print media. The news itself really hasnt changed much. Whats changed is the amount and breadth of news we can now consume thanks to the internet. We just see and hear more of the bad news (because bad news still brings in more views/hits) from other places and do some weird mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that its a threat or bad here too, if only just in a matter of time.

Now that doesnt mean its all peachy and we can stop worrying, but it does need to be all taken in perspective. I think the only real worry I have is with this weird rise in support of fascism in many western nations. Of all the things in history to forget only to repeat, why this one? :argh:

A significant change that's been happening for...oh, about 50 years or so relates to globalization. It's just plain easier to get messages across the world now than it was like 100 years ago. Mass media has changed how messages get out which makes it far, far easier for the news to grab pictures, video, and soundbites of the absolute worst things happening in the entire world. If memory serves we're seeing the most peaceful era of human history ever (or at least very close to it) but because you can just go to Google and say "war news" you can get a constant stream of war.

Whereas 200 years ago you wouldn't necessary know if there was a conflict 10,000 miles away. There may very well have been no way of knowing.

The other change is the nature of media. When your options were the newspaper or...another newspaper all you got was "10,000 people died in X conflict" or something to that effect. It was just ink on paper; some numbers, maybe a few names or why anybody was fighting. But it was detached. Maybe you could find it on a map or a globe. Chances are you were also a subsistence farmer that had to go feed the cows soon and dad gummit that blasted deer is in the corn again.

Now you get shown high definition video of a screaming woman holding the mangled corpse of her dead child in the crumbling rubble that used to be the city she lived in. You hear about how she's the last surviving member of her family and that her entire life is just a pile of rubble now. Seeing that stings and makes it really hit home what conflict does and that there's the possibility that that could be you some day.

WorldsStongestNerd
Apr 28, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
Perspective is important. When compared to the life of say, a Russian peasant in the early 1900's, or a European in the 1940's, or a chinese peasant in the 1800's, or a Syrian today, my worst case global warming / resource war / resurgence of fascism scenario doesn't seen that bad.

When we say that the world is ending, we mean this bright and shiny modern world that we have built. Until very recently, the life of the average human could be nasty, brutal and short. We fear being forced to take even a few steps backwards.

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computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

WorldsStrongestNerd posted:

Perspective is important. When compared to the life of say, a Russian peasant in the early 1900's, or a European in the 1940's, or a chinese peasant in the 1800's, or a Syrian today, my worst case global warming / resource war / resurgence of fascism scenario doesn't seen that bad.

When we say that the world is ending, we mean this bright and shiny modern world that we have built. Until very recently, the life of the average human could be nasty, brutal and short. We fear being forced to take even a few steps backwards.

And yet even in spite of that, these same apocalypse worries have been plaguing people for the past 200 years (and beyond, really).

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