isa41

Is there any argument that could be made that it might be in Iran's interests to let the enemy think it was more successful than it was, leading Iran to give false confirmations on the success of the assassinations? Or would there be no reason to do that? I take it that Iran never did confirm Esmail Qaani's death, given he is clearly still alive. But that makes me wonder if there are other people that the entity claims to have killed but that Iran has not confirmed are dead, in other words more people like Esmail Qaani who are in a Schrödinger's cat situation but might pop up like Qaani. Or was he the only one in that limbo who wasn't verified by Iran as dead? If there are other discrepancies like that, then we're back to where @Awoo@hexbear.net was at, wondering which others might still be kicking around.

ISIS was created by the CIA in Iraq.

Do you happen to have any good sources that describe how that came about?

This sounds very plausible to me, but I'm curious about who the differing bourgeois factions are and where the line is between their opposing desires. Is this a finance capital vs industrial capital thing, where finance doesn't want to risk escalation and possible nuclear war but the evangelicals in industrial capital do? Or is that way off?

So weird how under the leadership of the CPC and Mao in particular, the known cycle in China of recurring severe famines that had plagued the country for centuries just, well, ended. Another one of those weird coincidences that happened in spite of their stated efforts to end hunger ig. So weird that food insecurity is vastly worse right now in the US than in China, where it barely even exists.

The industrial revolution had already long since happened, dipshit. I wonder why at that very specific fucking time, China was finally able to industrialize the way that countries exploiting it already had. HMMM. Why might that come about then? Better put on my big thinking cap about that one.

"and modern medicine made its way into China."

HUH? Wow, I wonder why it made it's way into China right then? What a WACKY coincidence!

This trend could be in spite of Mao and not because of him.

Mao was following (and building upon) Marxism-Leninism which among other things is a science that predicts how industrialization occurs and can be used as a roadmap for how to achieve it. The fact that Mao followed and forged this roadmap with the stated intent to do so and that expected result happened is not a "trend in spite of" literally the policies you can look up that he (and the CPC) implemented with the purpose of achieving that very thing. (I'm facepalming so hard rn).

Correlation does not equal causation.

No, but you know what? Causation does equal causation, like when someone says "I'm going to throw this ball" and you watch them throw a ball, you can be pretty confident that the ball is moving through the air because their throwing it, which they said they were going to do and you saw them do, caused that to happen. Nah, it must be some other hidden corollary that is the reason the ball suddenly left their hand and moved through the air. Frankly it's embarrassing to see someone trying to come up with excuses to hand wave away the obvious fucking truth that is right there and plain for anyone and everyone to see, at least anyone who isn't frantically putting up blinders to try to protect their bullshit worldview.

Unfortunately Mao was an idiot surrounded by sycophants who killed more of his countrymen through incompetent policies than Stalin did with his purges.

Unfortunately burgerlanders are idiots surrounded by propaganda made by the empire that killed more people the world over through cruelty and policies of greed and exploitation than even Churchill did with his genocide of Indians.

You are an idiot. Mao was a brilliant and resolute (though imperfect) revolutionary that saved millions of people, pulled even more out of poverty, and set China on the path to becoming the superpower that it is. Surrounded by sycophants? lol, he famously called on the people not to blindly accept party bureaucracy and to fight injustice even when it means fighting his own communist party.

Nope, this was reality (not "the story") all along. Considering that it's known nazis who were running the ethnic cleansing campaign, it's pretty clear that you can't have one "goalpost" without the other. The fact that this is the first time you've heard this and think it's moving of goalposts really speaks to your utter ignorance on the topic. But I realize most westerners are completely ignorant on the topic sadly, seeing as the "pUtiN BIG MEANIE RuZzIa is EBIL dictatorship! Poor smol bean Ukraine!" narrative is the only thing that's allowed through the propaganda filter there.

Spoken like someone who clearly has zero knowledge of actual history. Especially considering a large part of the reason why the coup government in Ukraine began their campaign of ethnically cleansing the eastern population of their own country was because the people living there more strongly identified with Russia, wanted to be able to keep speaking Russian without persecution, and eventually pleaded with Russia to intervene on their behalf, which Russia fortunately did. But anyone who actually understands the history of the region is a "psychopath." lol

Yeah, the nazis and their defenders will always come out of the woodwork any time someone points out the (easily verifiable) facts regarding who really won WWII (the Soviet Union) and defeated the axis powers.

And you're a fuckin' clown.

You sound like one of those chud gamers who thinks making games more inclusive for other people detracts from the purity of the game. It's ablebist bullshit.

a fuckload of books and movies don’t hold my attention, should everything be re-edited to suit my neurology?

"There's a fuckload of places around the city that are wheelchair-accessible, should every public building be re-engineered to suit me just because I'm in a wheelchair?" A book or movie "not holding your attention" is a completely different thing than if a book or a movie didn't allow you to set it down or walk away from it. If a movie forced the people who wanted to watch it to do so entirely on the terms of the producer, like say, not letting people fast-forward through a scene with intense flashing lights, then yes, that's ableist and that movie should be criticized for being ableist and a version of it should be made so people with epilepsy could watch it.

You might as well ask for the spiciest food to cease to exist, to accommodate normal people, as though the vast majority of food is not spicy at all.

This is such a bullshit analogy that totally misrepresents what we're saying. ("We" being those of us who think games should not be ableist). We're not asking for spicy food to "not exist" in that we're not asking for your precious games who don't want people to be able to pause them to "not exist." They can exist just fine, as I described above, it doesn't have to be either/or, so you should stop pretending like it does. Just as a spicy food dish and a mild version of it can exist simultaneously. In fact it's funny that you'd even use that as an analogy since every restaurant I've ever been to gives its customers the option to order a hot or mild version of whatever spicy dishes it has on the menu.