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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • I use navidrome to stream music from my desktop. Symphonium is my android client. It costs like 2 bucks but it’s real good. Lots of different UI options.

    I haven’t done it myself since Im the only one using it…but I think in order to have somewhere your family can login and download music … That is a separate application from navidrome. Lidarr, Jackett, and somehow connect to qbittorent…I haven’t done it yet but I think that’s probably the route id go





  • There’s a perspective that some technologically literate people have (not all of them, certainly) that enables them a clearer view of what is going on re: tech oligarchs. That is how much we rely on other people’s computers. Most people don’t think about what is going on when they browse a website or post something on social media, set up their own shop on squarespace, sell a product on Amazon, stream music or TV or movies or games.

    Giant tech companies own it all. They own the computer you use to do all these things. They own the computers other smaller businesses use to run their companies. You invented a product and want to drive your cart to the market square? Pay a tax to King Bezos, the market square is Amazon. Did you make a game? Pay Gaben and you can sell it at his marketplace. Don’t wanna use these marketplaces? Wanna set up your own shop? You still have to use Amazon’s, or Microsoft’s, or Google’s computers.

    These tech oligarchs are more like feudal lords – enclosing lands (computers) and charging the peasants and merchants access to them.



  • Actually, you’re not being clear, at all. The article you linked, yourself, notes that the 37 murdered political candidates were local government candidates murdered between September and May, not national candidates. Far cry from your insinuation that 37 of Claudia Sheinbaum’s political opponents were murdered so she could win by the hands of the cartels.





  • Obviously this article is meant to cast the Pope in a bad light, but honestly I’m not going to fault the dude for invoking historical figures who proved to be beneficial to his own order.

    I mean, how many times do people invoke the image of Teddy Roosevelt in the US? Dude was hot for war, all the time. Or Abe Lincoln, who, prior to freeing the slaves, would claim that whites were still superior to blacks (depending on his political audience), and would advocate for the relocation of blacks to another country, similar to the US government’s efforts made against Native Americans.

    Invoking historical figures is so often a bad move, but how can you fault a person for not knowing these things? Roosevelt and Lincoln are gods in the US. Andrew Jackson was the king of the free man, a paragon of libertarianism, rose straight up from the ground to the presidency. But I’m sure the Native Americans felt otherwise.

    As for the Pope thinking the attack was provoked by NATO and not wanting to condemn Russia, well that’s kinda horseshit. Because Russia deserves condemnation for preemptive war in the same way that NATO deserves blame for outfitting more bases along the Russian border, and the US deserves blame for their interference in Ukrainian politics in 2014.


  • Its just a lack of consistency, I don’t know what to tell you. You can’t tell me the US sends military aid to Ukraine in order to “defend democracy,” when in numerous other cases of sovereign countries being occupied, we do nothing, or we even support the occupiers, in Palestine’s case.

    This lack of consistency lends itself to the idea that there are further interests besides “defending democracy” for which we send Ukraine weapons. I’m not sure how else to put it. If it were about the moral imperative of defending occupied people’s, you can pick out numerous similar examples where we have not acted, and you just have to conclude that there are other factors behind the US sending aid to Ukraine. One is the perceived threat the country feels from Russia, which I think is probably exacerbated by the press. One is the perpetuation of the constant war economy we have, and one is the increased political unity that war brings.

    But I’m curious about your position, you’re dismissing my arguments as “whataboutism,” but what exactly would you assert instead? Do you think that Ukraine deserves our aid more than Palestine does? Is it that Russia is a grave threat to the United States? I’m genuinely curious


  • I don’t think they should be condemned to genocide, but I don’t think we should be sending them weapons. I think Biden should be talking to Putin in some capacity, which he is not. Radio silence. I think that exacerbates the war.

    I don’t think this weird moral imperative is real, like we’re America so we ought to do something. I don’t think that it’s real because, just like in Russia, where you’ve got an active conflict and you’ve got some Russian propaganda calling for the denazification (what you’ve correctly referred to as genocidal) you also have, in Israel, active conflict of genocidal nature between Israel against Palestinians, but we do nothing.

    So you’re saying, we, America should condemn Palestine to genocide? Or how about the Uhygur peoples? Should we engage in a proxy war with China? Certainly, according to your claims that otherwise we are dooming them to genocide by their occupying country.

    That moral imperative you’re talking about is fabricated, because if the US government actually cared about these people – Ukrainians, Palestinians, or Uhygur – we’d be sending military aid to all of them, or else we’d be “condemning them to genocide,” as you say.

    This aid is not going to Ukraine to help them endure genocidal forces. It’s going there to perpetuate our constant war economy that is reliant on conflict. It’s going there to unite the political party against an outside evil and to further the US geopolitical and global free-market goals.






  • The fact that you’re assuming this person is a Fox “News” consumer is emblematic of the overall media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. A person can be anti-war and still part of the left. But not according to you, or others who immediately jump to things like, “go back to licking Putins boot, watching Fox News, etc.” You are shutting down any sort of constructive conversation.

    The media has made the war in Ukraine a moral imperative by making it democratic Ukraine vs authoritarian Russia. War makes everything black and white. So it becomes impossible to say something like, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong” while also saying “The US should not support Ukraine with weapons.”

    I am anti-war. I do not think the US should support Ukraine with weapons. To me, I am extremely skeptical of the simplistic idea that we are aiding democracy and staunching authoritarianism. I think that kind of of rhetoric pervaded the conflicts in the Middle East, and I think in those cases, it was more accepted by the public that the US was acting in a more imperialistic manner. I think that fits closer to the mark here, too.

    For one thing, the US was directly involved in Ukraine’s revolution in 2014, trying to position people in power who had a more EU friendly demeanor. And they helped expand NATO bases closer to Russian borders. These two things, while they certainly do not justify Russia’s invasion, I’m sure made them feel threatened. Now, I don’t have much historical knowledge of Ukraine or Russia, but certainly they’ve had more than just a geographic relationship over the past century or so. If Russia was involved in a Mexican revolution, trying to make them friendlier to Russia rather than the US, I’m sure the US would have a problem with that. Still, the US would not be justified in invading Mexico, as Russia is not justified in invading the Ukraine. This is just to point out the same type of meddling that the US does all across the globe in the name of “democracy” or “free market capitalism”, we were doing here, too.

    I think it’s doubtful that this is all purely in the name of democracy. After all, look at what is happening to Palestine. They are a country occupied by the authoritarian state of Israel, and we do nothing. So, to me, there are other factors at play in Ukraine. One, I think, is that war is profitable. “Defense” companies like Raytheon and BAE actually have an interest in perpetuating war, as it brings in profits. So big firms are going to support giant aid packages, as it means they’re going to get business.

    Another, I think, is that war is politically profitable. When you can get your party to demonize an individual or country and unite around the noble war effort, it’s just another issue you’ve manufactured to get their vote.

    Anyways. I just don’t buy that this war is about democracy or any higher moral value. I think it’s about money, to be honest, and politics. Mostly money. It’s a proxy war between the US and Russia and I think the media has pushed the narrative that it is a morally imperative war between Ukraine and Russia because it is financially interested in perpetuating the conflict. I don’t think the US has an interest in actually ending the war.

    And overall, I just think war is one of the greatest evils, and I will almost never support it. Real people are dying for fucking what? If that makes me a Fox News watcher, or conservative, or Putin lover, or whatever name you want to sling my way, I guess so be it. It’s dumb, but so be it.

    Edit: if you’re downvoting me without a rebuttal, you’re part of the problem that I’m referring to – a complete dismissal of dissenting opinion on the war. If you disagree with what I’ve said, please comment why because I’d like to hear your viewpoint so that I can adjust mine appropriately. I’m not interested in name-calling, but an actual conversation about this topic would be cool.