people with significant money in art assets have it documented and insured. if he had 30 pieces just by warhols and additional, we’re likely talking millions of dollars of assets.

nobody leaves millions of dollars lying around without some sort of insurance

to be honest, this is a great opportunity for him to cash out of all his expensive art in one fell swoop. i would be elated if I were him

Corporations only have one goal. To make as much money as possible.

There is nothing else. There is no moral obligation. There is no social contract. There is nothing but making as much profit as possible at all costs.

This is why capitalist democracy will always devolve. If I’m a large corporation that is powerful enough for meaningful political influence- I will always try to manipulate the system into a) eroding the free market so I have less competition and b) influencing the government to enact policies that subsidizes my operations. Eventually you end up with a system like 1930s Germany or modern China- where the state picks and chooses some favored corporations and allow them to dominate the market in exchange for cooperation and subservience. Like Volkswagen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H06734,_Grundsteinlegung_für_Werk_des_KdF-Wagens.jpg

So when a company says something about how much they love X or Y or Z and inclusion and diversity and whatever other buzz word of the month- they are saying it in order to maximize profits and they will stop saying it the moment the calculus changes.

$$$ insurance payout

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-2-debunked-accounts-of-sexual-violence-on-oct-7-fueled-a-global-dispute-over-israel-hamas-war

There’s a bit by Zizek where he’s quoting Lacan. Lacan uses the analogy of a jealous husband who believes his wife is cheating on him.

Jacques Lacan claimed that, even if a jealous husband’s claim about his wife — that she sleeps around with other men — is true, his jealousy is still pathological. Why? The true question is “not is his jealousy well-grounded?”, but “why does he need jealousy to maintain his self-identity?”.

The man has a deep-seated psychological need to be a victim. He needs the idea of the cheating wife to maintain this identity. In this case, his obsession with his cheating wife, even if it’s true and she’s sleeping around with everyone in town, is part of a pathology meant to protect his psyche from breaking.

That’s the Lacanian part. As Zizek often does, he takes this type of individualized psychoanalysis and expands it up to the realm of societal ideology. The example he gives is of the Nazis and their obsession with the Jews.

Along the same lines, one could say that even if most of the Nazi claims about the Jews were true — they exploit Germans; they seduce German girls — which they were not, of course, their anti-Semitism would still be (and was) pathological, since it represses the true reason why the Nazis needed anti-Semitism in order to sustain their ideological position.

An example he gives is that Jews were exploiting Germans. And this is, on its face, can be a true statement. Some Jews were bankers and therefore charging interest and profiting from Germans. Some young Jews were going around and seducing young German girls. Etc.

But the fact is, it doesn’t matter if the Jews are doing this or aren’t doing that. The Nazi obsession with the Jew has nothing to do with the Jew seducing young German women. The obsession is a necessary prerequisite for the Nazi to maintain their ideological position. A Nazi needs the Jew to be a scapegoat. To be a symbol of the Other- to use as an ambiguous threat; a vague amorphous barbaric enemy.

The Jews control the world and the global capitalist system. They are devious and scheming and mean to exploit us. On the other hand, the Jew is a stupid primitive animal who has inferior genes. They are everything and they are nothing.

I would take this and use this article as an example of a pathological ideological obsession on the Israeli side.

Even if the claims are true, which from what I’ve read there isn’t much evidence at all, that Hamas raped many young women on Oct 7th, I’d argue that it’s pathological. The Israelis need the idea of the barbaric and savage Palestinian in order to maintain their ideological position. When they talk about the rapes, it doesn’t matter if the rapes really happened or not. It’s there for an ideological purpose.

And just like the Nazi claims about the Jews- using small truths to create a large lie- the Israelis are following line by line with the playbook.

I provided them. You refuse to acknowledge them. I can only speculate why that is. That is OK.

If you do not want to participate in this attempt to find common ground and instead just want to argue with someone online in an endless circle, that’s OK. You either choose to engage in good faith or I will stop responding.

I beg to differ. The situation was MUCH better in this regard in Western Europe 15-20 years ago when being openly far-right would get you socially ostracized for the most part, and media didn’t routinely bring far-right mouthpieces on national TV.

the question we need to ask is why was being right-wing socially unacceptable back then?

why is it OK for a politician like Trump to say “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country” today whereas just 20 years ago that would immediately end a political career?

it’s not because we had more censorship.

the why is what we need to address. without economic security and legitimate institutions, we are lost.

censorship is not the solution and in fact it’s actively harmful. any mechanisms we create for a government to start censoring will inevitably be taken over by fascists when they come to power. and I think we only got a few years left at best

True, the far right has lost of lot of ground since musk took over twitter

we aren’t talking about some social media platform. we’re talking about a nation state censoring speech. these are two radically different things.

having said that, even on social media platforms with modern machine learning algorithms you can’t effectively censor. Look at how the far-right uses memes and secret symbols to communicate even through algorithms. for example the pepe the frog memes, the 88, the hand symbols, etc.

you can’t say “rape” on youtube or tiktok so people just use “grape” instead. the Chinese do similar things on their internet. censorship is always going to be a losing battle.

Hanging Nazis was really a mistake post war

executing people who committed war crimes and genocide versus a country censoring speech. again… two radically different things.

Giving them parlement [sic] seats is the best way to take power from them.

explain the connection between “giving” seats to Nazis (last I checked we had elections) in the current discussion about a country censoring speech.

(Yes, this is how stupid you sound)

you are free to spend your time on the internet saying anything you like. if making these weak appeal to ridicule comments makes you feel stronger, I support you

Censoring the far-right doesn’t make it go away. It just pushes it underground where it becomes even more radical outside of the moderating influence of the mainstream.

The solution is not censorship, but to understand what is causing the rise in right wing radicalism and address the root cause.

That root cause is the total loss of faith institutions coupled with economic insecurity felt by the working class. When people are scared and angry, they will turn to those who give them simple solutions and an easy scapegoat. It’s a tale as old as time.

You can try and censor all you want, it won’t ultimately make a difference.

This is the only way to rationally discuss emotionally difficult topics that have been bombarded by propaganda.

We need to come to a base set of facts that we can both agree on because otherwise, we will talk in circles endlessly. You certainly have the energy and desire to write about this- you’ve written some detailed long comments and have kept responding until now.

I have a feeling you don’t want to continue because you understand if we go down this road, there will be some cognitive dissonance. That’s OK. I’m not forcing you to do anything. This is a voluntary participation in a casual online forums. I spent a lot of time and effort on my comments to you, so I’m not expecting you to act like a monkey.

Ok that can be the first statement we agree on. I agree with it. I said earlier you could make statements. So we will have that be our first axiom.

1. Russia is a corrupt post-soviet state whose people, outside of its imperial core, live in often abject poverty

Can you go through the other ones I placed earlier and either “Yes or no because xyz”

neither US and China need to aggressively invade countries to expand and maintain their power base. modern imperialism is propagated economically, through proxy wars, and fought in the ideological space. all things the US and China both work very hard to accomplish

but we are talking about the economic systems of both countries. the fact that large corporations are becoming increasingly chummy with the state. we are starting to look more like China as China has liberalized and looks more like us

The propaganda here is being pushed generate profit.

when large tech companies invest and support specific political candidates and take certain politically minded moves- it’s for profit.

but if i’m acting in a political manner for profit versus i’m acting in a profitable manner for politics - what is the functional difference?

there is less difference between the chinese system and the US system than many would like to think. the main difference is where the source of the power lies. in the US it’s corporate - in China it’s the state. but what we have been seeing in the last couple decades is both of them are experiencing a convergent evolution into a merging of corporate and state power. coincidentally it’s what many scholars identify as one of the major tenants of fascism in Germany & Italy

That’s the thing about state media from China & Russia & Iran. Yes, they are censored in the sense they aren’t going to be critical of their host country.

However they are also a means by which certain anti-establishment voices from the West are able to get a platform. For example RT will historically interview people like Chomsky. It’s not because Chomsky ideologically aligns with Russia. It’s because “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. So just because something is censored in one direction, it does not mean everything else on the platform is false.

So if we go to TikTok, China is perfectly fine with certain leftist anti-establishment media whereas it would be algorithm’d away on the other major social media sites.

Again, it has nothing to do with TikTok being pro China. It has everything to do with the US government not being able to control what is on the platform for their own interests. TikTok does not have to answer to the US, and instead of us being OK with that because we’re a free country- we’re cracking down on dissent because we are becoming increasingly authoritarian.

If we can’t agree on a base set of facts, then we can never build from there. You refuse to acknowledge any statement I’ve made, even though they are purely objective statements. You are refusing to act in good faith here. I could say the sky is blue you’ll say light is a frequency and is made up of a range of colors.

If you are going to feel the need to be contrarian for every single statement, there is nothing to gain here. You have already made up your mind and are not discussing or thinking about anything

Yeah let’s follow China’s lead and become just like them! I support restricting political freedoms and a giant firewall and a social credit system too.

They are obviously the superior system and therefore we need to emulate them.

this means they can propaganda individuals so hard it will make your head spin.

Until you have an open source algorithm then any organization controlling a social media site can push propaganda. Just like they do here in the US.

The reason that Tiktok is being banned has nothing to do with data. We know this because you can just buy data about Americans legally from data brokers. This isn’t about Chinese propaganda either. The real reason is that Tiktok is not easily put on a leash by the federal government. The real reason is that Tiktok has a large amount of popular leftist and anti-establishment voices. The real reason is that the US wants to funnel people into the social media sites that jump when the government tells them to.

Do you have any intention of participating in this attempt to create a base set of facts? Yes or no because xyz. We can get to nuance later. You keep dodging

i agree with you but the UK definitely doesn’t

Lots of discounted high tech military equipment that the UK gets from the nature of the “special relationship” between the two countries. For example

KS-1 Rifle, Barrett M82, M2 Browning, Remington Model 870, Claymore mines, FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank system. The MRAP Cougar, M270 launch rocket system, M1070 transport system, various different MTVRs, Apache attack helicopters, Desert Hawk III UAV, Switchblades, and much much more

The UK would also lose their top export market (accounting for more than 2x the exports they send to the next runner up, Germany) and their 2nd largest import market (65B pounds to Germany’s 75B pounds)

Reality is the UK made their choice. They want to be in the bed with the US. Whatever Washington says, they’ll do. And that means more economic integration and more military integration.

I have exactly three questions for you, in return:

We’re trying to make statements of objective fact… Without a base set of facts, this conversation will go nowhere. I’m going to ignore everything else so that we don’t get lost. Although I have read it and I appreciate your effort in this discussion. You are welcome to make statements as well.

Ukraine is a relatively new country with roughly 3 decades of independence and is a poor and corrupt post-Soviet Eastern European state.

Ukraine pre-dates the Duchy of Moscow, pre-dates the Russian Tsars … Ukraine has made much larger strides economically and when it comes to combatting corruption

Please. Yes or no because xyz. Ukraine could have made great strides, but that doesn’t change the statement. Let me make the statement more precise

1. The modern state of Ukraine is a relatively young country with 3 decades of independence and is a poor and corrupt post-Soviet Eastern European state.

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023 - Below average corruption and only marginally better than Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita - Poorer than Guatemala, Iraq, and Libya

There are three parts here: a) Ukraine, with its current institutions, has 3 decades of independence and thus is a young country relative to most other countries b) Ukraine is a corrupt country relative to most other countries c) Ukraine is a poor country relative to most other countries.

So again- yes to statement 1 or no because xyz

The US is the strongest military and economic power in the world and spends more money on power projection than any other country in the world.

No. The EU is the strongest economical power and, militarily speaking, could stalemate the US.

Well first, EU is not a country. But I’ll play along and pretend like it is. We’ll start with economy-

GDP USA $26.85T

GDP EU $16.7T

EU economy, putting all 27 countries together, is roughly 60% the size of the American economy by nominal GDP.

GDP per capita USA ~$80,000

GDP per capita EU ~$38,000

In a per capita sense, EU citizens are worth about half of what American citizens are worth

But to be honest, these are bad measures of economic power in the modern world. We live in a globalized society where corporations are what determines economic activity and ultimately economic and soft power. So let’s compare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue

Largest 50 companies in the world by revenue

22 are American . 7 are EU.

If we look at the top 10 largest companies by market capitalization- 7 out of 10 are American. Only 1 is from EU.

American companies also dominate specific industries. For example there are no major tech companies from EU. Apple, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook (Meta) and more are all American companies. There is no EU Silicon Valley. The reason we are able to communicate right now is because of development and infrastructure by American companies.

To simplify and put it roughly: American companies are dramatically more dominant globally than EU companies.

There are other indicators-

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq account for over 50% of global equity market value. That means the two major US stock exchanges account for over half of global economic output or roughly $40T.

If you combine EU stock exchanges- Euronext, Deutsche Börse, Borsa Italiana, we have roughly $10T.

So American equity markets are 4x the size of the EU.

The first part of the statement - The US is the largest economic power in the world - I think is clearly true. If you have reasoning and evidence otherwise, please share. But this is pretty non-controversial

The next part of the statement - The US is the largest military power in the world. Your response was this

militarily speaking, could stalemate the US.

This is patently false. For one, we could look at defense spending.

The US defense budget is $877B. This accounts for roughly 40% of global military spending.

EU defense budget is $235B. So roughly 1/4 of what the US spends.

This means the US has more planes, more guns, more missiles, more drones, more bullets, more bombs, etc. Not only that, but it has higher tech equipment because the US has been spending much more for much longer (including on research). In one year the difference is $877B − $235B = $642B. Over 2 decades that’s $12.8T.

This is why the US has stuff like the Patriot Missile Defense System and the Europeans don’t.

Let’s look at some figures

So not only does the US have better stuff, they have more of it. They also have much more experience using that military, which leads to tactical and doctrinal advantages.

So the statement “The US is the largest military power in the world” I think is clearly a true statement. It’s the US that has dozens of military bases in the EU, not the other way around.

2. The US is the strongest military and economic power in the world and spends more money on power projection than any other country in the world.

yes or no because xyz

The US has attempted, with varying levels of success, to topple dozens of regimes all over the world throughout the 20th century up to the modern day.

Mostly South America and a couple of places in Asia because Domino Theory.

Please, yes or no because xyz. It’s either true or not true. We can discuss nuances after we agree to a base set of facts. But to elaborate, here’s a non-exhaustive list of US attempts at regime change (with varying levels of success)

• Guatemala 1954
• Cuba 1961
• Dominican Republic 1961
• Brazil 1964
• Chile 1973
• Grenada 1983
• Nicaragua 1980
• Iran 1953
• Iraq 1963
• Libya 2011
• Syria 2012
• Congo 1960
• Ghana 1966
• Zaire 1975
• Angola 1975
• Philippines 1902
• Vietnam 1963
• Indonesia 1965
• Cambodia 1970
• Laos 1960
• Afghanistan 1980
• Greece 1967
• Italy 1948
• Portugal 1974
• Yugoslavia 1999
• Ukraine 1950

the statement “Mostly South America” is false, as South American countries make a minority of the countries on that list. the statement “a couple of places in Asia because Domino Theory” is false, as it was more than a couple and they mostly had nothing to do with Domino Theory. We can address your question once we have the axioms.

I’ll keep the statement identical

3. The US has attempted, with varying levels of success, to topple dozens of regimes all over the world throughout the 20th century up to the modern day.

The US has attempted, in the 20th century, to stage a coup in Ukraine.

You’ll have to be more specific. You said “After WWII” which implies after 1945 which means that you’re talking about the Ukrainian SSR.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/11/covert-operation-ukrainian-independence-haunts-cia-00029968

Operation Red Sox, as it was known, was one of the first covert missions of the still new Cold War. The American-trained commandos would feed intelligence back to their handlers using new radio and communications equipment, stoking nascent nationalist movements in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and the Baltics. The goal was to provide the U.S. unprecedented insight into Moscow’s designs in Eastern Europe — and, if possible, to help crack apart the Soviet empire itself. Over half a decade, dozens of operatives took part in these flights, becoming one of the U.S.’s “biggest covert operations” in post-War Europe. Ukraine’s bloody insurgency was the operation’s centerpiece.”

I will revise the statement to be more precise

4. The US has in the past used covert means to spread dissent and support regime change in Ukraine, in addition to other Eastern European countries.

Yes or no because xyz

NATO was founded as a tool of American hegemony and power projection.

It was founded to organise Europe against the threat of Russia, just after and in response to the Berlin Blockade I’m not a fan of it either but the whole thing wouldn’t exist, and definitely wouldn’t have expanded, without Russian imperialism.

Ok let me revise my statement

5. NATO was founded as a tool of American hegemony and power projection, with an aim to counter the Soviet bloc

Yes or no because xyz

The US has openly funneled billions of dollars into Ukraine since Ukrainian independence.

So did Russia, so did the EU.

NED has existed for longer than Ukraine has been an independent state and has been funneling money for the entirety of Ukraine’s existence. EED, on the other hand, was not founded until 2013. NED also operates with roughly 10x the budget of EED.

Your statement about Russia is probably true, although hard to find evidence for. Let me revise the statement

6. The US has openly funneled billions of dollars in Ukraine since Ukrainian independence, far more than any other country except perhaps Russia.

Yes or no because xyz

There is some non-zero amount of money that went into Ukraine covertly in addition to the funds above.

Oh, definitely. All those bribes definitely weren’t cheap for Russia.

Let me revise my statement to be more precise

7. There is some non-zero and significant amount of money that the US poured into Ukraine covertly in addition to the funds above.

Yes or no because xyz