2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $7136.34Goal: $10000

RationalWiki:Saloon bar

From RationalWiki
(Redirected from RationalWiki:BAR)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Saloon bar
WIGO Bar colour.png

Welcome, BoN
This is a place for general chit-chat about virtually anything that doesn't fit anywhere else.
Beer.gif For previous conversations, see the automagic barchives.Drinks drunk.gif

What is going on?

(talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic)

[hide]Pointless poll

It's the end of the world as we know it. Do you feel fine?

Yes

57

Vote

No

142

Vote

My enemy is...

Pigeons

6

Vote

Geese

59

Vote

Ducks

2

Vote

Corvids

11

Vote

Gulls

24

Vote

Starlings

1

Vote

Owls

3

Vote

Parakeets

3

Vote

Hawks

2

Vote

Cliff Racers

28

Vote

Zubat

28

Vote

Has KarmaPolice been watching The Birds?

52

Vote

To do list

Same old. Still sucks

Just saw a libertarian on Twitter ranting about how student loan forgiveness is 'theft' and 'unfair' to people who already paid off their loans. Meanwhile, they’re perfectly fine with billionaires dodging taxes through offshore accounts and corporations getting bailed out with taxpayer money. The mental gymnastics are Olympic-level. Edit0r (talk) 15:39, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

They simultaneously believe that "people should feel the consequences of their actions" and that "taxation is theft", I would imagine, so "bailing out other people's loans = letting people off scotch free from consequences" while "billionaries dodging taxes = hard-working/intelligent people fighting back against the unfair taxation system", or something. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 16:17, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
The Silicon Valley scene, with its libertarian-to-neoreactionary movement pipeline (and subsequent embrace of Trumpism), has been perhaps the most mask-off event I've seen of the so-called "libertarian" scene. From my perspective, a lot of so-called "libertarians" are essentially oligarchy / authoritarian capitalism bros in disguise. Albeit one with political naivety. (Like, if the culture war / nativist side of Trumpism ends up being the ones with the levers of control, what will they end up thinking of folks like Peter Thiel (oh noes, gay!) or Vivek Ramaswamy (oh noes, furriner!)?)
There are genuine libertarians out there I think, but I tend to assume (until proven otherwise) that most people who call themselves libertarian are not. BobJohnson (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Sounds about right. Isn't it human nature for one to resent people getting what one did not get? It's injudicious, right? But, that's what we got, greedy, resentful behavior. People struggle to be generous. People seldom adhere to strict principles when those principles obstruct results in ones own interests. I hate being this cynical because it is offensive to optimists, and I'd prefer to be with them.
There is the idea of libertarianism, but nobody is really a libertarian. Let's say they have a tendency in that direction. A political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values, eventually becomes "my freedom, my personal sovereignty and my liberty," as ones actual valuesZatoichi (talk) 18:13, 28 February 2025 (UTC).
I'm not so sure this can be written off merely as sour grapes/greed. The human squirrel mentality is caused by 'fear of the future' and if you add this to a hyper-individualism and a chronic shortage of resources you get the 'fuck you, got mine' and 'two wolves fighting over a piece of meat' mentality. Clearly, this makes people easier to manipulate. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
Humans respond to incentives. This kind of "fuck you, got mine" mentality wouldn't fly in a hunter-gatherer gift economy, because that behavior is actively disincentivized. Antares (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
I would only note that greediness and resentfulness are difficult to tease apart from the sense of injustice that those feel who do not receive a particular benefit. The sense of justice is highly valued in progressive spaces. I think that sense is also a construct of human nature. The desire for justice is an appetite. Many mammals apparently have behaviors analogous to the consequences of the human motive of revenge for injustice. Zatoichi (talk) 19:33, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
I do wonder why people meat-ride billionaires even through there's a near-zero chance that the person/people they're glazing even realize that they exist. Although I guess that goes for celebrity worship in general.
As for the whole libertarianism thing, big-business tends towards authoritarianism when left to its own devices through things like Taylorism and the autocratic/oligarchic leadership structure of a lot of big companies (at least in the U.S.; maybe it's different in other countries.) Once you realize that being pro-big-business and anti-authoritarian are contradictory, you either become anti-big-business or an authoritarian capitalist (assuming you're not being cynical and just using the whole "libertarianism" thing as a justification for your own selfish behavior.) Gabaghoul 🥩 00:08, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Given the breadth of the varieties of libertarianism (Libertarianism#Branches and disputes within libertarianism), it seems safe to say that calling someone out as not true libertarian falls easily within the No True Scotsman fallacy. Bongolian (talk) 02:09, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't think it should be controversial to say that supporting a system which actively creates less liberty isn't actually libertarianism, unless you define liberty specifically to mean "liberty for big businesses to do whatever the fuck they want (with an * depending on the variety)". ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 02:31, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Libertarian is historically just a synonym for anti-authoritarian. If your "libertarian" politics leads to you supporting authoritarian policies, you are not a libertarian. You're an authoritarian. Words have meaning. Antares (talk) 02:48, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Bongolian made a good point. I should have mentioned that I was specifically attacking right-libertarians (pro-capitalist) - more specifically the right-libertarians who interpret being pro-capitalism as being in favor of big-business. There are plenty of libertarians who aren't capitalists and some of the capitalist libertarians make a distinction between being pro-business and pro-big-business. Gabaghoul 🥩 03:46, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Anytime a libertarian gets into "rules for thee, not for me" classism mode (and that's a lot of the SV "libertarian" types), they are not libertarian by my definition... or from my perspective, by the dictionary definition either. The definition of libertarian is advocating minimum government. If the amount of government that someone thinks is good suddenly hugely increases if you have a different skin color or fall afoul of some Religious Right Dominionism ethos, how does that coincide with the definition on the books?
While I am aware of the "No True Scotsman" principle, I also think that many classifications have significant foundations, of which a deviation should raise serious questions on just exactly how committed they are to the philosophy they claim. If someone claims to be libertarian -- a philosophy that advocates minimal government -- but also endorses heavy state options simultaneously, this really isn't libertarian. In fact, if their "no rules" ethos really only applies for a select "elite" class, and the "non-elites" deserve plenty of rules in their book, that's an oligarchy no matter what they call it. BobJohnson (talk) 17:20, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
A lot of people here seem to be ignorant of the fact that association of neo-liberal economics and political philosophy with "libertarianism" was largely a cold-war branding exercise to associate "freedom" with a conservative love of the market. Before the 70's, libertarian was largely the polite word for anarchist.. people who arguably had a philosophy and practice that had much more to do with freedom than what was being peddled by the like of Friedman. 2A00:23C8:3D88:E701:B543:77DB:E78C:7DA7 (talk) 19:25, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
That's probably a thing, but there is also an idea of 'kick the ladder' business. It's called disruption. Once you get a solid place on the rung, you should 'kick the ladder' or disrupt everyone under/behind you to secure your place. It is to prove your worth/hold on the the ladder. And then you just say the people below you aren't qualified to handle your disruption and ask for sychophants. And business has been doing this with favors and nepotism for so long To play chutes and ladders that now we've got Trump and Musk, when we always hated Romney for being the Wall Street corporate layoff lord. So, I do agree with a lot of Libertarian ideals, including things like right to repair and ignoring curfews, but I also understand that the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag means something entirely different anymore and it's usually a weirdo culture signifier. Torrent (talk) 07:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Yes, the word "libertarian" was more associated with social anarchists in the past. But now, a more typical "libertarian" is someone like Javier Milei. In practice, Milei's "libertarian" is a "polite word" for Peronism, albeit in this case cranked through the Trumpism misogynist / homophobic / "Internet tough guy" lens that so many of the right-wing worldwide seem to aspire for these days. (Who knew that so many people in the world wanted to be ruled by man-children acting like 13 year old boys?) Such is quite typical of those claiming the label now. BobJohnson (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
How do we get the the libertarian idealism back? In a culture of memes, I say just freely claim the the image of 'don't tread on me' and put it on the flag. Just do it. The 'don't step on snek' meme was good, don't tread on trans rights, just steal it. If 'Don't tread on me' coiled snake becomes the center of the LGBTQIA+ flag, actual factual Libertarianism wins. I'm not joking, don't tread on human rights, just Re-appropriate a symbol like it means You agree with something and stamp it on there with your full chest. The guy who created pepe was really disappointed with how pepe memes got built into early alt right, and it took years but pepe memes don't mean much anymore. it's a coiled snake, Put it on your flags, because monarchy and fascism won't define you. Torrent (talk) 07:08, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
In a US context, “official/organised” libertarianism was literally bought out by the Kochs decades ago (hell, the late David ran as the Libertarian vice-presidential candidate back in 1980). This explains a lot of its contents and why it remains a fringe club, because it really has nothing to offer anyone but oligarchs. So, in that sense, libertarianism in the US has been a propped up zombie/astroturf movement for a very long time.
The problem is that, while this “official” US libertarianism has just been Weekending at Bernie’s for decades, this doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been influential or productive due to the very same billionaire backers and thus it’s hard to compete with in the public space for other (in my opinion, far more genuine) strains of libertarianism. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
So take it from the playbook and just use it for what it's intended for. Torrent (talk) 08:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

LTA Page

Wikipedia has a page to report cases of LTA, so do we need one here? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:39, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

LTA? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
LTA is a regular acronym for Long-term abuse. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 14:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
We are much smaller than Wikipedia. We all know who the problem editors are. We also have the mod noticeboard and the Chicken Coop. Spud (talk) 15:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
We might, but I've seen some people here continue engaging with obvious socks of known ban evaders despite knowing (or at least, heavily suspecting) who those socks actually are. Antares (talk) 15:08, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Having a list of our worst trolls would be a massive mistake. That's exactly what they want. They'd see it as an achievement. Ignore the fuckers! Spud (talk) 15:17, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
I am not sure what it would achieve and I agree that it would counter-productive. On the other hand it is quite encouraging that we are seeing an uptick in attacks. We are obviously hitting the right targets.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:21, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Seriously, the rollback button is one fucking click. Pizza SLICE.gifDuceMoosoliniYour friendly RW dictator moderator 15:22, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Nowhere in my comment did I endorse this measure. Antares (talk) 15:50, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
I engage with the socks because as a rule they are not obvious. We have to be careful to not insert our heads in the arse of paranoia, like CP did aeons ago [and driving away good-faith folks too]. What's more, they give you opportunities to practice polishing up your potted replies to the crankery etc which I am sure can be reused by others at a later date. Lastly, it's my bandwidth they're sucking up; you not considered that I might do this deliberately as so to keep them away from others? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
I think Karma and I have disagreed. But this is fine, I engage with socks because i don't spend the time to learn who is a sock. I don't care about the identity, I care about the argument, which is not paramount to any specific argument. If Machina is ignoring my very generous takes on.his solipsism and goes on to make anti lgbt statements, man, if I'm gonna be honest, I feel like I fucked up for leaving him alone. I had other things going on, I tried really hard to invite Machina to a real world before that. I don't think anybody is a lost cause, and a sock is a statement that above all else, they like it here. I like it here, that's not hard to say. Torrent (talk) 09:07, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Most socks are here because they hate this place. And we repeatedly told Machina to seek professional help instead of relying on a bunch of non-psychologists like us for help, but he didn't want to know. So, don't feel bad for not being able to help him, Torrent. Spud (talk) 17:05, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Maybe most socks are here because they hate us, but I can't believe they hate the space and I fully disagree with the idea that connection isn't important. Maybe Machina didn't grab my hand, but it still sucks. And maybe hating the people who try to keep this site available to everyone, who have to take that hate and maintain the site is a dumb way to engage. if you like it here, do the bare minimum, and if you need a sock, reconsider your approach. I was suspected of foul play, because I don't always agree with bunk ass sweeping policies. I don't have a little army, I actually am just one person, who speaks in this place. And I like that I can do that. Torrent (talk) 06:21, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Mr. Musktard

Honestly, the Musk worship is baffling. The guy is a master of self-promotion and at generating undeserved hype, but when you actually look at his track record, it's a mess. Tesla's success was built on government subsidies and the work of engineers who actually solved the problems, while Musk takes all the credit. And let's not forget how he called that cave rescuer a 'pedo guy' because his ego couldn't handle being told his submarine idea was useless. SpaceX? Sure, they've done some impressive things, but let's not pretend it's all Musk—NASA funding and a ton of talented engineers made that happen. Oh, and don't even get me started on Twitter. He buys it, fires half the staff, reinstates a bunch of far-right trolls, and then wonders why advertisers are fleeing. The guy is a walking case study in how wealth and arrogance don't equal competence. But hey, at least he's good at memes, right? Edit0r (talk) 21:06, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Musk was from my perspective a good Steve Jobs-ish futurism type figure from around the mid 2000s until, well basically, that pedo guy comment. By "Steve Jobs" figure, I mean basically the marketing and "vision" type people in technical corporations. Usually, their technical competence is minimal, or (in the manner of Bill Gates) was long given up once they assumed a management role. But most techie types can't market well, so that's not really a big deal normally.
In the mid 2000s, the Tesla Roadster made a splash. Before then, everyone essentially poo-pooed electric vehicles. I have no problem crediting Musk for some of the marketing and public relations stuff during that period.
Unfortunately I think that this initial success led to Musk thinking he was The Genius Of Everything; it didn't helped that a cult of personality had developed around his futurism persona, meaning Musk had a large group of yes-men who worshiped his every move. It also didn't help that Musk was even during this period a bit of a 13 year old boy manchild in an age of 4chan, South Park, and other bullshit where "edginess" was far more celebrated than actual knowledge. (Even back in the Slashdot days, there were a lot of Linus Torvalds "fanboys" who seemed to get really, really excited when Mr. Torvalds said "fuck" on the Linux listserv. As if you could program a kernel by cursing at it...) 'Twas part of the appeal among the normies, methinks, unfortunately...
So, yeah, here we are, and Musk has declined to just another alt-right edgelord. His track record in the 2020s really *has* been quite mixed; SpaceX and Starlink are probably the only bright spots. Tesla's latest releases (Tesla Semi and Cybertruck) have not exactly been success stories, and the whole company looks like a sham when you consider how many times Musk has over-promised and under-delivered. Twitter's a shell of itself. Of the "Magnificent Seven" of the US stock market world, Tesla's valuation looks the weirdest. Even with the recent decline... >135 P/E ratio, for what? Unlike the rest of the Mag.7, I consider Tesla a meme stock in the same manner of Gamestock and all the other r/wallstreetbets bullshit. There's no way in my mind that Tesla is worth 3 times the market cap of Toyota. (If you offered me a Cybertruck or a Toyota Land Cruiser for "tough road" situations, I would take the Toyota in a heartbeat!)
Which is a shame. Because I could see in some other timeline someone taking the momentum Tesla built up in the 2010s, actually fixing some of the "little things" like the nagging form and finish QC issues Tesla's always had an issue with, and creating something possibly actually worth something. Ain't no way now... BobJohnson (talk) 21:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
One of my best friends bought into Musk's hype at its peak... actually got a Tesla, "invested" into various cryptocurrencies, started regularly following and watching SpaceX launches, went so far as to even drive down to the US for one of the Starship launches. Things are of course different now... were discussing it over coffee. My friend regretfully described Musk as seeming to be perhaps one multi-millionaire/billionaire who appeared genuinely interested in advancing technology and general society, even with of course such development being tied to some financial self-interest... a troubling rich guy who nonetheless had the world's best interests at heart maybe. "Saint Elon of the Musk" was the comedic name thrown around at the time. My friend now seems most distressed over how he believed such an image, given the true character that has been revealed since. Articles that I've read about it mention a very, very good PR team that Musk eventually fired when the cult of personality and perception that they fostered eventually went to his own head. Part of life I suppose... innate desire to believe and put faith into an idea/person/thing that promises a brighter future or fulfillment, only to eventually and undoubtedly be disappointed at some point. Acknowledging such things and knowing how to move forward is a lesson that unfortunately can take time and be a struggle (queue What Is Love by Haddaway). Impiricism (talk) 22:18, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
There's also the problem of the cult of meritocracy. That being wealthy means you're competent and worthy of recognition as an authority. It's definitely a problem beyond Musk, but Elon is where it's most apparent I think. In part because of that aforementioned Dunning-Kruger effect, and also because the guy has no fucking concept of optics. Say what you want about ghouls like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, they're not tanking their brands with a flood of bullshit. Antares (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
I think we can't ignore the personal appeal. The elite class on a whole are pretty dull/anonymous bunch, a significant % are old and a lot of the younger techie/finance ones are like Zucker - boring nerds. The Boor has it all; huge wealth while still being actually capable of enjoying it, it's possible for folks to imagine some women could find them genuinely attractive [that is past the wallet] and something which looks like 'a personality' if you don't stare too hard. The fact he 'really does stuff' ie isn't just a finance bro manipulating numbers on a screen simply sweetens the deal.
Or in a TL:DR - I think a lot of his fans had quite the mancrush on him. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:35, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
There is evidence that Musk was always a fuckwad: ancestral fuckwaddery (crackpot maternal grandfather, angry drunk father and angry drunk paternal grandfather), leaving South Africa on his not-very-plausible claim that he didn't want to defend Apartheid, fraudulently gaining US citizenship (a "parasitic illegal immigrant" according to Steve Bannon),[1] totalling at least two autos including a $1 million McLaren before buying a car company, the antipathy of his former colleagues (Peter Thiel, Philip Low, and his former workplace buddies who ratted on his US citizenship fraud). Bongolian (talk) 08:04, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
I have always described Musk as American Royalty it's so weird but people who don't pay attention have described him as a real life Tony Stark. But let's point something out, A year past his buyout of twitter, everybody calls it X (formerly known as Twitter). He doesn't have the support he thinks he has, he is a Dauphin who kicked his support in the teeth and maybe has bought in so hard to the idea of heir apparent that he kinda ignored the fact that he's a cabinet apointee. His moves aren't popular, and he's ignorant of that as an idea. Torrent (talk) 05:12, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
The problem of "wanting to be rich", is a perennial human foible, often found in song and story. My favorite example is by Chaim Topol:
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them like a Solomon the Wise
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong
When you're rich, they think you really know!
Zatoichi (talk) 19:18, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
Word Torrent (talk) 09:16, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Article Creation

In order to combat vandalism, is it possible to restrict the creation of new articles in mainspace to autoconfirmed users? (Userspace can remain as-is) TheEternalOutsider (talk) 22:15, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Doxxing aside, vandals are mostly harmless. I think you should care less about them. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 22:16, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
The reason why I focus so much on it is because there are the occasional periods of time when no sysops are online. If someone is reading the wiki during those off-hours, there's a risk of an article appearing vandalized or troll articles that haven't been deleted. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 22:24, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
If the countermeasure I proposed isn't up, is there any way for at least one sysop to be online at any time? (It doesn't have to be the same sysop, just having one sysop online to prevent vandalism is infinitely better than having offtime.) TheEternalOutsider (talk) 22:27, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
As almost everyone is a sysop, I think any 'gaps of coverage' is down to a lack of sysops who actually patrol the recent changes etc. We also have some non-North Americans who help provide more 'off hours' cover than you'd think - for example sometimes I'm on here at 2/3/4 AM EST [also known as 7/8/9 AM GMT] and at times this involves doing some anti-vandal work. But one of the good things with RW vs a lot of other online communities is that the powers to deal with vandalism etc is a lot more spread out amongst RW's member-base - I've seen situations where this power is very narrowly held, all in American timezone folks which means there really is 'gaps in coverage'. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Barely filled in a gap. Close call. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 04:12, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
As for the edit filters, how can I configure them? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 04:40, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Guarding against the risk of people reading this site? C'mon. I dunno how to put a wink here... Torrent (talk) 05:20, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
Some IP contributions to most wikis will be 'reasonable people deciding whether to become active, named, persons on RW, or named users (on RW and/or other wikis) who, for some reason, do not sign in on occasion (using a different computer in a hurry, do not notice they have been logged out, wishing for some reason to be anonymous for the given article) - and quite a few of the vandals and other nuisances sign in under a more or less dubious name.
Asking as a non-expert - would it be possible to have IP-address created articles automatically set up as Draft articles/some other means of flagging them up for checking? Anna Livia (talk) 12:57, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Redirect Pages

Can someone point me to instructions to create a page foo which is just a redirect to page bar? The instructions for publishing a draft talk abut how to redirect hits to the draft page.

Then if anyone creates an independent page for something that was previously discussed in another article, they don't have to go around changing every Other article#Something to Something 05:03, 7 March 2025 (UTC) — Unsigned, by: Polydamas / talk / contribs

Use #redirect[[pagename]] or #redirect[[pagename#section-tag]]. However, this feature shouldn't be used to redirect a mainspace page to a draft article. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 16:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Media criticise Die Linke since it became important

While polls following the election gave Die Linke at 12 %, the first time they are ahead of the greens (11 %) since a long time, the media go on to attack Die Linke because it has a blocking-minority with the AfD on special spending for arms (they are slowly realising the warmongering greens of the openly centrist Habeck and Baerbock were not so horrible compared to truly left-wing politics). I know this is going to attract interesting reactions from some people here, but, at least those who self-identify as « leftists » here should accept the fact that being neither for the US-American and Russian oligarchies (no matter if a Trump governs or a Biden: both have materiel interests in mind more than the defense of the Ukrainian people) nor inconditionnelly for the Zelensky government supported by the Ukrainian oligarchs but for the creation of a third, pacifist and regulatory block composed of smaller countries, is the position of most left-wing parties worldwide on this conflict. There is nothing « shocking » about the fact that left-wing parties support peace, in Palestine, in Ukraine, in Irak, in Syria, in Tibet, in the Cold War. Being for peace means opposing the superpowers Russia, USA, and China which will support escalation for their interests when they need to. Of course not all wars are completely avoidable, but they should always be well coordinated and conducted in a republican manner, not in the interests of particular parties to take primary commodities hidden by religious or ideological justifications. Missak Manouchian and his 22 murdered comrades of the resistant immigrant workforce fought for peace against fascism, and yet Manouchian's last written words were « I have no hate against the German people ». Jaurès supported peace despite the German and French governments actively wanting war, and was assassinated by a far-right nationalist in 1914, provoking his party's support for war. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were assassinated following their struggle for peace. Léon Blum in France was responsible for a better military security of France, and yet tried to support peace as much as possible. The international brigades fought for peace against Franco's fascist forces. It would be « shocking » if Die Linke supported any superpower to have the ability to profit in any way of Ukrainian primary commodities while putting the Ukrainian people in a very hard situation. What I find « shocking » is the unwillingness to recognise past mistakes by people who now realise NATO is dead, Trump and Russia's invasion of Ukraine hopefully have shown Germany how little it weighs.


On top of this, the so-called « mainstream » parties have not proposed to discuss things with Die Linke, maintaining unclarity of wether or not they consider the party republican or anti-republican. If the CDU can vote with the AfD to get a majority on immigration, Die Linke can vote with the AfD to get a blocking-minority on defense spending and BSW can vote with the AfD in Sachsony to get a majority on starting an investigation on the federal and regional governments' handling of Covid-19. It's surprising seeing the neo-liberal media who always wrongly criticise the left for supposedly being close to the far-right being shocked when the left really occasionally votes with the AfD (and in this case the left is not voting for an AfD proposition or using AfD votes for it's own proposition, it has the ability to oppose a proposition with the AfD). New world (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Read the Wikipedia page on Die Linke, so obviously am very knowledgeable now about the party :3
Most of the ideology and platform that I read I fully agree with, though the stance to restrict or block weapons to Ukraine over some... convoluted moral superiority complex... is appalling. There are indeed oligarchs and some mayhap questionable groups within Ukraine; nonetheless refusing to provide support against a blatantly illegal invasion by an arguably more fascist hostile state is absurd. Not providing assistance to Ukraine due to inconvenient moral hand wringing, and voting with other parties who have a clearly repugnant stance, is ignorant hypocrisy.
That's my initial opinion anyways. Impiricism (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
I mean you could argue that it will bring a kind of peace if Ukraine is decisively defeated on the battlefield by Russia, which it will almost certainly be, if military assistance is cut off…
But the problem with the kind of left parties that claims that curtailing military assistance to Ukraine will further peace is that they’re lying to themselves and the public by pretending that this scenario, a Russian military victory is not the extremely likely result and context of the kind of peace this is likely to produce.
Calling out any party that argues for reduced military aid to Ukraine in a situation where Russia shows absolutely no signs of letting up or curtailing their own offensive efforts is not only appropriate, but not doing so would be a failure to hold that party politically accountable for the extremely likely and eminently predictable results if its policy were to be adopted.
I was actually positively surprised to see how few European left wing parties decided to take this stance in the first place, because I’d honestly expected more of them to reflexively join whatever side the US was not on (because it tends to be their default reaction, though often not without some justification).
If a left wing party is calling for reduced military aid to Ukraine right now, considering that it directly aligns that party with both Trump and Putin, I think it’s fair to ask if said party has lost the plot or how a policy that dovetails with the very far from leftist (or peacenik) head honchos in Moscow and Washington (and the AfD as well, btw) is actually a very appropriate course for a left wing party to take. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:11, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a reliable source: the majority of that section dates from 2014.
1. Both Left Party and La France Insoumise, the most important radical left parties in Western Europe, have nuanced their positions since 2022. However, it is absolutely not « shocking » to see left-wing movements supporting neither the USA and Russia which only have their profits in mind, neither unconditionally the unreliable government of Ukraine.
2. Precisely Trump and Russia's invasion are proof of the weakness of previous European policy, which was more focused on building « european ways of life » and an economic-liberal consensus than cooperating with the new wave of anti-American governments of North Africa and Latin America when the occasion had presented itself. Instead, European leaders, and especially the Germans, stuck their heads in the sand and pretended that, despite Germany depending on Putin's energy (at the time he was still a somewhat respectable president, according to the media) and being vassals of the USA everything was fine. It was France and Germany's decision to bring Eastern European countries without the economic capacities they claimed to have which allowed this to happen in the first place. While German leaders are still having some problems accepting the failure of German foreign policy, Germany will hopefully now take a more humanist and reasoned approach at things. However, this special spending is definitely not the humanist approach Germany should take. Trump's victory and Putin's invasion make Europe realise it should have taken a gaullist path from the beginning, and adopted a clearly republican, humanist, and economically dirigist position. Instead of harassing Greece and disrespecting the will of the French electorate with the Treaty of Lisbon, Germany should have told those little fascists in Eastern Europe to accept a certain amount of immigrants, immigrants who came to Europe because of this reputation as the place of « western » democracy and « reasonable » neo-liberalism. This is the end of the German « voice of reason »: Germany will have to stop acting hypocritically like it did when denouncing the Assad regime while themselves supporting worse people in Syria at the time; it will have to stop giving lessons to countries like Latin America about climate even though it does not understand the fundamental point that there cannot be any green capitalism; it will have to separate from it's idea of the « western world » (USA and allies). Trump's victory will force Europe to act reasonably and to see the danger of the situation. New world (talk) 18:12, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Uhm, could you at least attempt to stay on topic? You can waffle all you want about Germany’s role in Europe and how terrible both Trump and Putin are, but it doesn’t address any serious issues pertaining to Ukraine or why the kind of peace that any major reduction in arms support to Ukraine is not, in all likelihood, going to involve kind of decisive Russian victory.
I frankly care very little for jeremiads about how “hypocritical” this or that Western leader might have been in his or her public statements on one subject or another, when the issue at hand is a nakedly imperialist land grab against a sovereign neighbouring state whose security and integrity Russia has underwritten (along with the other parties to the Budapest Memorandum). Indeed, the Western support for Ukraine, very much unlike Russia’s invasion, is very much in both the spirit and the words of that treaty.
In this instance, I find it frankly baffling when some parties and politicians on the left (though thankfully not that many) who have long prided themselves on being oh so anti-imperialist and often (and quite appropriate in my opinion) loudly denounced the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, suddenly become very mealy-mouthed about taking sides in the Russo-Ukrainian war while blathering vaguely about a need for peace. Unless, they’re now also going to tell Palestinians to just stop fighting and make peace Israel on Netanyahu’s terms, I don’t see why this stance on Ukraine makes any coherent, ideological sense.
It really does seem that these particular leftists are simply mentally unable to follow the logic of their own ideological stance, if that happens to bring them onto the same side as the US. Hence, all kinds of mental contortions have to be practiced in order to come up with some excuse to not do so, and if, in practice, this entails throwing Ukraine under Kremlin’s imperialist bus (and drones, cruise missiles and mountains of artillery shells) in the process, then, apparently, that’s a sacrifice this particular strain of leftist is bravely willing to make. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:45, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Oh, and before we all get too giddy about the historical role of the far left as an agent of world peace, I’d just play the devil’s advocate for shits ‘n giggles and remind the audience of the about face performed by Western communist parties in the wake of the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact.
I happen to have done a little bit of primary work on this during my history studies, specifically on how one Western communist party portrayed this rather embarrassing U-turn in its propaganda towards its own members (thus reading its portrayal of both Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s invasions of Poland). I must say that some of the “nuances” of certain leftists today in justifying why not supporting Ukraine militarily is not just capitulating to Kremlin imperialism display a similar level of mental contortionism and creative (re)writing of facts and history. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
It is not « off-topic » to say that Europe will have to rethink it's possibilities because of Trump's victory. And what mysterious leftist party are you talking about which does not support in some way or another a peaceful solution to the conflict? Generally, European leftist parties who support warmongering are close to the centre-left in some sort of way (Sumar in Spain for example).
The situation in Gaza is not easier, Die Linke and La France Insoumise support a cease-fire in Gaza and in Ukraine. What is your solution? Escalation? War with Russia? The left in Europe proposed to make the war in Syria a United Nations intervention, it now wants to recognise a Palestinian state and start a cease-fire in Gaza, and it wants a cease-fire and peace talks in Ukraine. With Ukraine, one solution would be giving the pro-Russian Crimea to Russia. This is a necessity. Crimea was neglected in Ukraine, independently of Russia's usage of the conflict as a means to justify the invasion. The region wants to be a part of Russia, and while it previously belonged to multiple powers at different times, it is currently largely Russian-speaking. What other solution is there? Europe needs to escape it's absolutely horrible situation first. Parts of the left in Europe also support removal of nuclear arsenals, which humans cannot be trusted with.
@ScepticWombat « Peace » is coming already. A new age in geo-politics is coming, and the only camp which can be happy about this is the far-right. However, Europe's left parties can be proud about being correct about danger of depending on Russia and the USA. Europe, because of it's previous positions, will have to accept Trump's decision (sadly). An independent Europe could have better defended itself and Ukraine. Propositions from leftist parties on Ukraine do not matter anymore. Europe needs to separate from the USA, a country which is very much capable of starting invasions in the same way Putin did.
Also, Die Linke and La France Insoumise occupy the space that the Socialist Party, the SPD or the Labour Party occupied previously. Mitterrand (not the communist party) was elected in 1981 on a program of abolishing NATO and the Varsovy pact, but because his neighbours were Thatcher, Kohl, Reagen, the application of the program had to be stopped after one or two years of great reforms. New world (talk) 19:38, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Terms like "left" and "right" can be more nebulous than it seems, but you did mention the Die Linke breakway party BSW, which is often described as "Russophilic". There's a portion of "the left" in various places that is so anti-Western in its outlook, it embraces elements of right-wing populism / ruscism. A wee bit of horseshoe theory in action. In US space, I'm more aware of journalists like Glenn Greenwald who went on this exact path.
I think a lot of people are of the opinion that Europe needs to break away from US dependency in light of the US's current isolationist self-own path, but people who wish to cave in to Putin's demands in Ukraine are, frankly, extremely stupid. There is no way I can see this bringing peace and even a casual observance of Putin's behavior would make this point clear. Most European leaders instead seem to be ramping up internal defenses as quick as they can, and that in my view is the correct response to the election of Trump. BobJohnson (talk) 20:00, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
I have to admit that it’s still quite difficult to follow arguments which remain vague about what the actual concrete alternative to aiding Ukraine militarily is supposed to be, while also dropping new detours (now, it’s apparently Ukraine’s fault that Russia “stealth invaded” Crimea…).
The line of argument becomes ESPECIALLY murky, when it’s accompanied by a criticism of Europe being too reliant on the US, which I can’t see as anything but an acknowledgment of the lack of practical European military independence from the NATO framework, in which the US remains an integral part (for now). I happen to agree that Europe has relied too much on the US militarily, but it’s an odd thing to hear from parties that are notoriously allergic to domestic military spending in general and the build up of common, European armed forces in particular.
In addition, this is argument very hard to square with the repeated complaints about the supposedly “warmongering left” (which I assume denotes the vast majority of left parties across Europe that actually is in favour of military aid to Ukraine). But since every one of these arguments keep being held in these kind of vague, general terms, who can tell.
So, while I’m not the one boasting about my “nuanced approach”, I’ll be happy to give my personal perspective on what actual policy on Ukraine is both realistic and anti imperialist: Keep supporting Ukraine militarily and economically. Consider how aid can be increased without risk of escalating the conflict to include more than Ukraine and Russia as active combatants, just as we have done since 2020.
Russia is having both its military assets and its economy slowly ground down and things are only going to get worse for Moscow, if Ukraine’s allies don’t pull the plug. In the end, unless Ukraine is abandoned by its allies, Putin will have to settle for a lot less than the ludicrous demands he keeps banging on about. Sadly, I think Ukraine will probably be forced to cede de facto control over parts of its eastern territory and I think even Kyiv has long since written off Crimea entirely. But such a deal needs to include some serious security guarantees for Ukraine and should definitely not leave it as an isolated “buffer state”, unless the goal is simply to postpone a Russian victory until another invasion.
The main problem going forwards is to what extent this attrition strategy is feasible without the US, due to practical limitations concerning how much artillery ammunition Europe can produce and procure without relying on the US and the effects of the withdrawal of US intelligence and cruise missile defence support for Ukraine, which the Europeans cannot readily replicate.
So, now I’d like to hear about these “nuanced” policies that are going to create peace in Ukraine without major military aid and what this peace is envisioned to contain: If you’re going to the negotiation table in the near future, how are you going to get Putin to back down from his extensive demands that also include leaving Ukraine more or less defenceless and a rejection of a European peacekeeping force to ensure that Putin doesn’t just reinvade once he has rebuilt Russia’s economy and military forces. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:49, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
It's unclear what should be done now after over 30 years of mistakes in Europe. By threatening to cut military aid, Ukraine should be encouraged to peace talks. Guarantees should be given to Ukraine, which Russia will have to respect. If the EU is independent of the USA, it is Ukraine's right to be a part of it. Europe will have to cooperate with Latin American countries, as long as the anti-American left still governs in most of them. One way or another, Trump will be present at the discussion table. Germany should definitively give France the leading role in the EU, and nuclear weapons should stay in France's control (Do you want Hungary to have access to nuclear weapons? Countries like Poland, Lithuania or Estonia might threaten Russia in an unreasonable manner with them). And NATO needs to be abolished first, if the EU has any will of truly building a « humanist » and « democratic » force. Currently EU countries are in an offensive, military alliance built in the interests of and around the United States of America (despite Germany's constitution forbidding it to be in such an alliance). Currently the EU is cooperating with authoritian regimes arguably worse than Russia. The moral argument does not stand, Russia is barely better than some of the EU's current allies.
What « leftist » party is against peaceful solutions to conflicts? Unless you are including the centre-left parties, most clearly leftist (radical left) parties in Western Europe are for de-escalation: Podemos in Spain, LFI in France, Die Linke in Germany (it is for peace, however it doesn't have the weird Russian penchant of BSW), the Corbynists in the UK, and I imagine leftist movements in Italy and Scandinavia too. New world (talk) 11:46, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
You aren't a troll, right? Impiricism (talk) 17:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Read the page I linked. Like it or not, this position is nothing special within radical left parties of Europe, and I am suspecting democratic socialists in the USA might have similar positions, but I don't know much about inside US politics. I am very serious, and nothing in my responses suggests I am not. Die Linke is not a « far-left » European party either, so it should coincide with this site's opinions. And criticism of German handling of European foreign policy is very common in my country's (France's) more radical left. New world (talk) 18:16, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
This is not strictly a political site, and military policy is not really covered by the mission. So I don't know about that. :)
The Die Linke policy page you linked to seemed to reinforce ScepticWombat's views, from my perspective. The overall push is for disarmament, diplomacy, less weapons, less military overall, and more social justice type things. Donald Trump is mentioned more often than Vladimir Putin -- this is weird to me.
Their policies honestly strikes me as... well... naive, honestly. It seems to answer nothing about the hows and instead relies on negotiations as a cure-all for peace every single time. That's a nice thought. Wish the world really worked that way, right? BobJohnson (talk) 18:41, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
The victim blaming of Ukraine ("By threatening to cut military aid, Ukraine should be encouraged to peace talks."), which apparently is sincere naivety rather than pro-Russian trolling, is what made me ask. If Europe's left wing parties truly are of such a position, then that's disappointing. Impiricism (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
If this « shocked » you, even though it was very nice with the EU compared to what it could have claimed, this will be even « worse » to you. There is a time when some here need to accept this isn't just the position of individual « problem makers », but of most of the non-centrist left in Western Europe. Wagenknecht's group is particularly bizarre, and they were fixated on the subject, like the other parties (Greens, CDU, etc.), instead of arguing about interior issues (outside of immigration). Considering this is also the Latin American left's position, I am having trouble believing that leftist parties in Anglo-Saxon north-America want anything else than realistic peace. You can consider these positions « naive », but it would be denying reality to pretend that most of (Western) Europe's leftist parties have different positions. For clarification, the left here in Europe doesn't consider these positions to be something else than pro-Ukraine. Like I already mentioned, we consider ourselves to be for the Ukrainian people. As to Eastern European leftist parties, most of them seem irrelevant (but I don't have much information about Eastern European politics). I can understand the media wrongly representing the European radical left as « far-left » or « anti-republican », but for people who acknowledge that this camp is not « extremist », I find it ridiculous how some here try to paint so-called « naive » positions as « surprising » coming from a radical, but republican and non-extremist left. It is not just that or this individual/party (Corbyn, LFI, Podemos, Wagenknecht etc.). In France, the inside opposition to Mélenchon led by François Ruffin, which was recently ousted, supported the same « questionable » positions on Ukraine (and in this case the media represented the open Wagenknecht-admirateur and « rural » Ruffin as a « moderate »). In Germany, before Wagenknecht left Die Linke, Gysi was one of the supporters of her peace demonstration in Berlin (while BSW definitely had a Russian penchant, it's conflict with Die Linke was, like with Ruffin, more on immigration than foreign policy or internal democracy). I imagine in Spain and the UK pacifist positions are not an outlier either in the radical left. New world (talk) 23:36, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
This site is a political website by virtue of its opposition to authoritarianism. Antares (talk) 20:19, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but what that also means is that it is "not necessarily left" all the time. Tankies and other "left" authoritarians are frowned upon here. The same with Russia/Putin apologists from either side. Things like The Grayzone are considered extreme "leftist" by some sources (them being tankies and all), but are just as much fake news oriented as sources like Infowars that are generally considered "far right". Neither get favorable coverage here. BobJohnson (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be talking about the European left I know. Spain's governing socialist party just promised another 1 billion in military aid to Ukraine.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:20, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Some people treat leftism as a contest and think that if you are not to the left of Lenin you're not actually part of the left. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:26, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
And yes, there's also a mirror image of this on the right, with some people deriding anything short of laissez-faire capitalism or rigid traditionalism as "communism". GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:35, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
No doubt we will see some "no true Scotsman" comment at some point.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
@Bob M I don't care if Anglo-Saxons can't distinguish between far-left, radical left, moderate left and centre-left, or between centre-right, moderate right and far-right (and to me, right/left are still accurate and should be used today, contrary to what the so-called « centre » and parts of the far-right claim). I specifically mentioned the radical left multiple times. A representative of the centre-« left » (which has truly drifted to the right since the end of the Cold War in Europe) would be Joe Biden in the USA, and a « radical » left personality would be Ocasio-Cortez. While having sympathies with the Russian revolution, the radical left (which occupies the space that was previously called centre-left) is not far-left (leninist etc), so your comment about Lenin does not make sense. And the « right » which compares anything not discriminatory to « communism « , is the anti-republican right (the far-right, not the simple republican right). It's not « no true Scotsman » to say that Roosevelt (not the imperialist one) was left-wing, Kennedy was not. And besides, I explicitly mentioned exclusively radical left parties, and not centre-left ones. So why do you mention PSOE and the close to the centre-left Sumar in Spain? And you say that as if PSOE was extremely radical. This is what I mean by denial of reality. People on this site pretend that aside from literal far-leftists (Stalinists, Maoists etc.) the more moderate, even if radical, left-wing doesn't support peace for the Ukrainian people. To make you understand, this is as if a group was pretending only Leninists claim pacifist solutions (next to open « ruscism »), while the centre-left of Joe Biden/Kamala Harris doesn't claim these, while completely ignoring the pro-Ukraine, pacifist solutions of a Bernie Sanders or an Ocasio-Cortez. I am not claiming the latter two have these same positions, but Western Europe's non-extremist radical left definitely does. New world (talk) 16:40, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
@New worldWhat exactly did I say about Lenin which you take exception to?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:15, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
If it wasn't you, it was some other person who mentioned Leninism in some manner at one point. New world (talk) 19:24, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
@New worldI am surprised you didn't check before including it in something you felt was important enough to ping me over. (And from the wording of your response apparently you still haven't checked.)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
It was GeeJayK, just between your comments, who claimed that some courants of the left supposedly believe anything « right of Lenin » to be right-wing. Although it was not a literal reference to Leninism, the comment still implied that these parties were « extremist » parties with a « purity »-obsession (however, none of these parties is Leninist, a far-left faction). New world (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────I don’t think these positions by Melenchon/La France Insoumise (LFI) and Die Linke are representative of the left, but rather a very clear outlier. The pantomime of “solidarity with the Ukrainian people” is simply a classic deflection technique to avoid dealing with the fact that the Kyiv government has a very clear public and democratic mandate and that its policy of staunch resistance remains broadly popular within Ukraine.

Similarly, the call for cutbacks in military aid to Ukraine to encourage peace talks is basically defeatism masquerading as pacifism, because to anyone who has been even barely aware of what has been going on in the Russo-Ukrainian War so far and the sounds from Moscow, it’s obvious that Putin will simply use this to up the pressure on the battlefield to gain as much leverage as possible, if not an outright victory. And he will definitely opt for the latter, if he’s at all able.

Again, it’s also indicative that, rather than discuss this very concrete, serious and acute issue, the answers meander quickly away from Ukraine to grand visions of global solidarity, because, at the very least on Ukraine, the LFI/Linke positions don’t stand up to even a tiny amount of critical scrutiny or the real world circumstances in which they have to be implemented.

The most egregious example, and I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or not at the absurdity of the idea and that it’s apparently presented in all seriousness, is that the tiny Baltic countries would threaten Russia with nukes, even if they had access to such weapons. This clearly ignores why such a ludicrous strategy would not be credible, even on its own terms and within the premises, given that just a few nukes would easily fry the entire national territory of either or all of the three countries, whereas Russia has both the space and arsenal to counter this bizarre hypothetical scenario. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Considering the absolutely anti-republican manners of acting of the SPD and the CDU (they want vote special spending under the pre-election Bundestag), Die Linke and the AfD are bringing the matter to Karlsruhe. Think about the proposition itself what you want, but this is ridiculous and not worthy of a future government. Like in France, but to a lesser degree here (in France, the centre and centre-right have the choice of discussing things with the broad left-wing alliance or the far-right, they chose to create a minority government tolerated by National Rally), the SPDU had the choice of discussing things with either Die Linke or the AfD. In this particular case they decided to « cheat », but the message the two parties send is still apparent: Die Linke is not a discussion partner to them. In that case, Die Linke might as well refuse policy compromise with the SPD once it will be strong enough to double the social-democrats' score in coming elections. The CDU is again using the same argumentation it did when voting with the AfD: Parties supposedly just have to accept it's propositions, then the CDU would be ready to not surpass parliament/vote with the far-right. New world (talk) 21:40, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

How can Europe arm itself?

Many people above are discussing that since NATO is dying due to the Trump's administration, Europe should spend more on defence, especially since there is also a warmonger nearby. I also think it should, but I see at least one problem. Where will the money come from? Yes, the Laffer curve is mostly a theoretical curiosity, that hardly applies to the European finances, but that doesn't mean that raising taxes even more would be a good idea either. Spending cuts, especially on social welfare don't seem to be an option either (though they might be in other areas, if someone could elaborate, I would appreciate, I don't know a lot about European spending structure). Faster economic growth will be hard to achieve when 1 your workforce is dwindling and you don't want immigration and 2 R&D spending is so low that Amazon spends more on it than every company in Britain and France put together. So, how can Western Europe spend more and protect herself from an aggressive Russia? My guess is that the continent will end up cutting at least some social expenditure and raise some taxes, but for those of you that know more about the European economy and politics than me, what do you think? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 19:13, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

I would actually argue that Europe, as a whole doesn’t need to spend that much more on defence. The main issue is not that European countries, in aggregate, spend much too little on defence, the main problem is that they get far too little out of their spending, because it’s fragmented along so many national budgets and relatively small procurements.
This means that there is too little economy of scale when compared to total European defence spending and this is further complicated by a lack of standardisation on equipment, which further increases development, running and maintenance costs.
Part of this is due to some countries favouring domestic producers and thus small scale military Keynesianism/industrial policy, some partnering with a limited number of constantly shifting European partners, depending on the type of weapon system, while others use US procurement to curry favour with Washington.
If Europe is not going to simply piss away a substantial amount of resources, then a common defence production and procurement strategy should be top of the list, not just hosing the defence departments with extra money.
One particular priority should be considerations of practical, strategic self sufficiency and how this might best be attained:
  • How far can the US be trusted to deliver systems and components and could Washington potentially prevent or nerf the use of US systems or those containing key US components (not least software)?
  • A friendshoring strategy for those parts and systems not considered crucial for national defence and/or can’t be currently produced in Europe.
  • A longer term strategy for building the necessary common European development, production and maintenance facilities for the systems and components for European security.
One glaring example of duplication and fragmentation is in main battle tanks (MBTs) where there are competing programmes in Germany (Leopard 2), France (Leclerc), the UK (Challenger 2) and Italy (Ariete), while Poland has signed an agreement with South Korea to build up production of yet another MBT model (the K2 Black Panther), in addition to various upgrade packages developed by several former Warsaw Pact countries for their last Soviet MBT (typically T-72 variants). While it’s good to foster some competition and avoid reliance on a single monopoly, that five unique MBT designs, plus the upgraded Soviet stuff. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:22, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
There is certainly a plan (or the concept of a plan) to boost European arms spending. I know that both UK and Spain are committed to it as individual countries. There is debate is about how to finance joint EU spending. It's very much "watch this space" at the moment.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:00, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
From my little understanding, the problem with Europe's defenses is mostly that a good part of defense spending has been on information intelligence and cooperative R&D with the US (European countries have control over some patents for things used in modern military equipment) rather than simple mass production (which has largely been outsourced to the US); basically the tech is there but not the means to produce it. Revitalizing Europe's defense sector will mostly mean getting a bunch of military factories up and running again. Whilst Ukraine largely being a ground war (due to both Ukraine and Russia having good anti-air batteries), drones in particular are a cheap thing that Europe should be able to get set up fairly quickly, as it's use in an active warzone has proven to be extremely useful.
As for the risk of the US shutting things off; yes that's a major problem. One of the more looming problems with the Ukraine war is that much of the equipment that Europe has been sending to Ukraine has been reliant on them getting implicit approval from the US beforehand. This goes pretty far - the US's Arms Export Control Act basically means that for all of Europe's military equipment, you currently need an okay stamp from the US to use it or to sell it to someone else, even if that party already has an agreement to receive weapons from the US. Particular examples include the fact that the US had to approve the sale of a military airplane (was unrelated to Ukraine) not because the plane was made in the US, but because a single missile that was included in the sale was made in the US. European and American defense spend has been intertwined for a very long time, so untangling that is going to be a mess, but it should be doable. -- Techpriest (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
-There's more standardisation with kit than you'd think, but more would help. For example, making sure all Euro tanks can use the same ammo and fuel. Quite a lot of Euros use German Leopards [or variants of] which already means it's not such a hodge-podge of kit as implied. Similar can be said about cooperating with development; see the Typhoon and Storm Shadow. However, having to 'do all this ourselves' is most likely going to cost us more and so nullify any 'savings' made from cutting down the duplication.
-Ukraine has shown the Euro assumption of war to be wrong on two fronts; that a) it wouldn't happen in our own hood and b) it would be either 'short sharp shocks' or low-level 'brushfires'. Result; we've become very 'glass cannon' while Russia is doing 'zerg rushes' in the old Soviet style and as it stands now chances are they'd win. There's a serious risk that we increase our defence spend to simply buy more glass cannons while instead what we really need to design/produce new 'cheap and cheerful' kit which is easy to operate/repair, effective enough and can be produced domestically.
-Speaking of which, we know from Ukraine that what we need is not just more weapons, but more ammo/materiel stocks. A lot more. Europe isn't just a glass cannon, it's one where there's only 10 glass balls per cannon to fire. We also need to drastically expand our reserve forces which means I think we need to have a serious chat about the reintroduction of conscription or at least making serving in the reserves a much more attractive prospect for folks to serve in [for example, I'd be willing to give a stipend to any person serving in the reserves].
-Leading on from this, I'd also argue that a decent % of the spending increase should go to a) Civil Defence orgs and b) the creation of a 'civil reserve' which can be called on in an emergency - helping to build 'national resilience'. Experiences from WW2 onwards show that the provision of training and kit to civilians is a very cost effective way of providing extra capacity; ie to turn civilians into first/second responders to assist the professionals. This is more important because Russia is unlikely to directly attack us but is very likely to attempt hybrid warfare - such as hacking vital networks, sabotage, terrorism, use of criminal groups etc to damage and destabilise us. Similar needs to be done with 'reserve stocks' of things like fuel, medical gear etc so if something does foul up [not explicitly war] we have enough on-hand to ride out the crisis.
-Some of the increase should go to intelligence/law enforcement/education too. Crack spy rings, close down dark money networks, counter misinformation outlets. To educate the population about the pervasive nature of shit like fake news and propaganda networks and go after those who peddle them.
-To a certain extent, it's not a direct 'must cut social spending to fund defence' because what's happening is that Euro nations are running into self-imposed 'rules' regarding tax/spend which is blocking them in. I mean, the British didn't have to slash foreign aid to spend more on defence, they only did so because Reeves seems to be auditioning to be the new Philip Snowden and stupidly promised to not raise taxes. Covid debt is also proving an issue; that it [for example] whacked another 20% of Debt/GDP ratio onto UK.Plc's account and 'Treasury Brain' is demanding that we must do austerity again to 'get it down' and it must be done at all fucking costs, even if it actually damages future economic performance, national resiliency, societal cohesion or external soft/hard power. What's that line about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
My point was not that European equipment is not interoperable, but that duplication and fragmentation increase per unit cost leading to a very well-known problem in European military procurement:
  1. Because orders are small, per unit cost increase.
  2. This leads to a reduction in the number of units ordered.
  3. This further increases per unit cost and leads to a vicious cycle of further reduction in the quantities ordered and/or postponement of the order to stretch costs across multiple budgets
  4. This not only further increases unit costs, but also tends to makes it necessary to keep older equipment in service, rather than phasing it out.
  5. Older equipment tend to have higher maintenance costs (because it’s close to being worn out), which further zaps the military budget and means some might look to reduce procurement costs to make ends meet, and, well, you get the picture.
Ironically, despite Germany being the producer of the most prevalent MBT, along with a lot of other kit, its own procurement has been one of the worst in falling prey to this vicious cycle, with political horse trading and constantly changing specifications further driving up costs for several of their orders,
These kinds of problems is why it’s a really bad idea to have such fragmentation and duplication and I only used the MBTs, because they’re an easy illustration of the issues of dispersing, rather than pooling resources to run multiple production lines of a fewer number of designs, not to mention that the latter approach would entail a level of redundancy and thus be more resilient to such things as sabotage etc.
It’s very clear that stockpiles have been kept too low, as KarmaPolice pointed out, and that outsourcing has been pursued overeagerly, but the need to combine and pool procurement (whether domestically produced or imported) should be among the top priorities, if Europe is to both build up domestic capacity and avoid waste. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:55, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
The reason I worry about the procurement process is that I think there’s a big risk that this “window of opportunity” might create a lot of hasty, non-coordinated procurement orders that will lead to a lot of subsequent headache. I’d also like to see a general approach of “buy European or present a strong case for why you aren’t” adopted to ensure that procurement is mainly geared towards building up and maintaining European capacity to further European strategic independence. ScepticWombat (talk) 22:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
-There's a solution for this issue [a problem known of since the 50s]; that of modular weapons systems. Dismissively called 'military Legos' systems like the Danish StanFlex means it's possible for a 'small' nation to order an off-shelf military ship hull and then buy/make the containers to make it fit the intended role. This also gives a) greater flexibility [a survey ship could be quickly turned into an ASW escort or AA battery] as well as making it more 'futureproofed' because as the containers become obsolete you can simply buy new containers. If we take this philosophy and also apply it to planes and armour [more widely than it already has, that is] we might be able to get that unit cost down due to economies of scale and the ability for nations to easily 'mod' their tanks to their desires/role and reduce the maintenance costs because it would be relatively simple to swap out sections as they reached the end of life. A good civilian comparison here is what PCs were like before plug-and-play and standardised connectors [younger folks don't realise just how revolutionary the rollout of USB was].
-The main arguments against this is that of the old generalist/specialist one [an ASW-moduled ship will be inferior to the ASW-designed ship] and a lot of attempts to do this [like the USA's 'Future Combat Systems'] fucked up because it fell into the classic 'Western' trap of trying to overengineer the whole thing and/or put in too much bleeding-edge tech which seems to usually cause more issues than solve. Which folds back into my 'cheap and cheerful' point earlier; that Europe/America's obsession with making high-tech, super-specialised systems is with few exceptions pretty out of sync with what Ukraine is showing us of what a modern war between two industrial powers would look like and we'd be better served by focusing more on decently functional, 'no frills' kit which is affordable and reliable than stuff which gives say 20% more function at twice the price [or more]. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I can’t really disagree with any of these points (and am quite familiar with the StanFlex system), but my worry is exactly that these potentially massive investments are going to be channelled into 27 domestic industrial policies, rather than a single, EU/pan European strategy (the latter also involving non EU NATO members, such as Norway, the UK and possibly Turkey).
From what I’ve heard so far, the new EU fund providing common loans for defence spending will require build up of domestic production as one of the conditions for accessing these funds, which is clearly a good thing, but I’ve heard less about more systematic common procurement beyond the existing models, which tend to be fairly limited, usually involving a handful of countries or less, agreeing to some kind of one off common purchase, possibly with a maintenance package added on. ScepticWombat (talk) 22:45, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Note that when it comes to collaboration outside of the EU, Norway should be easy, because its vital interests are just as threatened by Russia as are much of the EU member states’ and it’s already deeply integrated into both NATO and the EU (via the EEA, despite not being an EU member). However, I’m a bit more wary of the UK and especially Turkey.
My hesitation vis-á-vis the UK is mainly because I’m not entirely sure how far Westminster can be trusted not to suddenly descend into another fantasy of “Global Britain” and its “special relationship” nostalgia and try to cozy up to Washington. Hence, if I was more certain that Westminster was prepared to acknowledge where the UK is actually located (geographically, economically and politically), I would have little to no hesitation about such collaboration.
The problem with Turkey is the same that prompted the US to stop exporting certain military equipment to Ankara: The risk that, due to Turkey’s military collaboration with Russia and China, sensitive information might seep across and/or backdoors might be opened into common systems and shared technology. ScepticWombat (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Someone to feel sorry for

The US President elected November 2028/succeeding Trump who has to renegotiate so much with all the other states who have been alienated and/or have negotiated alliances where the US is treated as a marginal actor. Anna Livia (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

"People voted for this shit" and that's the problem: I would think that one cannot assume that the United States is the "leader of the free world" anymore. At least, as long as there is a very large audience for the current tribalism-oriented, isolationist, anti-intellectual, and authoritarian Trumpism movement. Pax Americana as a result may indeed very well be dead, or at least neutered, unless the politics here changes significantly.
(Even without Trump, "the GOP propaganda machine" still exists, so I am not hopeful that this element will disappear completely anytime soon personally. Maybe Trump will fuck things up so badly that such will be neutered though. We'll see.) BobJohnson (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't think the US's political ties with Canada or Europe can be renegotiated. An enormous amount of trust has been lost and will not easily be regained. I have never seen so much anti-American sentiment in my life.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:13, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
A benefit for Canada is that, from what I can tell, I think Trump is doing a great job neutering the previously creeping "Trumpism" in Canadian conservatives. Trumpy Canadian stuff like Rebel News still exists, but that site seems awfully out of step, even laughable. The Canadian conservatives making headlines these days are ones like Doug Ford who are punching back at Trump, not kissing his ass.
(Not sure if there's a similar effect in Europe or not. It would make sense if there was.)
(Side note: Isn't it weird that "killing Pax Americana" is "making America great again"? It's like Trump and MAGA never knew what America really was.) BobJohnson (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Another free and fair US election seems a bit optimistic at this point IMO. And Trumpism becoming dead in Canada is maybe occurring in the Eastern provinces, but I assure you that in the prairies, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan, frothing at the mouth MAGA supporters are still present; the incredibly muted tariff responses of Danielle Smith and Scott Moe are, when compared to other provinces, revealing I'd say. Impiricism (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
The last national free and fair election would have predated Citizens United v. FEC (2010) giving corporate citizenship, and Shelby County v. Holder (2013) that began the neutering of the Voting Rights Act (1965). It would have excluded the 1968 and 1972 elections in which Nixon committed felonies in each one to get elected and the 1980 election in which Reagan committed a felony to get elected. That leaves the elections of 1976 (Carter), 1984 (double Reagan), 1988 (greater Bush), 1992 (Clinton), 1996 (double Clinton), 2000 (lesser Bush), 2004 (double dubya), and 2008 (Obama) as arguably free and fair (or more accurately freest and fairest). Bongolian (talk) 17:32, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
I'm not able to rule out a third Trump term. I think he'll push for it hard at some point. --Ozzyboo (talk) 17:58, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Does Trump play chess? Anna Livia (talk) 18:57, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, the GOP has been playing the Viktor Orban playbook for several years now. By this I mean: elections still happen in Hungary, and they aren't manipulated... overtly. However, many subtle changes have occurred in Hungary's landscape -- such as making media, education, courts, and other institutions Orban mouthpieces, and extensive gerrymandering. The elections in Hungary are still "free" in a "technically correct" sense, but strongly gamed.
The GOP already has implemented much of this playbook. Donald Trump was elected on a wave of propaganda; a lot of American media, ranging from Fox News to Elon Musk's Twitter, exists in an alternate universe where the Democrats can do nothing right and are to blame for everything on the planet; extensive gerrymandering does occur (on both sides in this case, though). I don't think the US is quite fully Orbanized due to the extensive federalism and some independence in the courts still (despite there clearly being GOP suck-up judges as well). But US elections certainly are quite gamed at this point.
How much of the GOP side of the gaming will fall apart once the Dear Leader Trump expires, of course, is an open question, since much seems to rely on his appeal to celebrity "charisma". BobJohnson (talk) 18:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
That might not happen for a while. While Trump is a walking epitome of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle, that's not to mention his age and apparent cognitive degeneration, he also has access to some of the best healthcare on the entire fucking planet. Antares (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Unlike some 'ordinary Americans'.
What will happen as the tariffs and other factors start having serious impacts on 'MAGAists and ordinary working people are affected? Anna Livia (talk) 13:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I would like to be the 32nd State.

I am personally completely okay with the illegal, occupied state of California being rightfully returned to the Estados Unidos en México as El Estado Libre y Soberano de California. Viva México. --Ozzyboo (talk) 18:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Everyday, balkanizing north america becomes less of a joke little by little. Phantasmagoria (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
I am from Wales. We were in Great Britain before the Romans, before the Anglo-Saxons, before the Norsemen and before the Normans. I think the whole island should be returned to Celtic rule. I don't care how much time has passed.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:13, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
The time has now come to reclaim the centuries old illegal occupation by those silly English speaking sorts, and create the 19th region of France. America must return the lands of New France to the French republic where it rightfully belongs! (They can keep Mississippi though.) BobJohnson (talk) 19:31, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
But you forget, people have been there before the French! The land should be governed by the tribes who were there first! Koafox (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Return Hawaii to the Hawaiians while we're at it. Antares (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Nay, my friends! There is no need for that sort of thing! Just like the days of the Dick Cheney and Iraq, it is absolutely positively certain that, once the Empire steps in and takes over, the natives will take a look at our Empire's awesome Freedoms (TM) and Prosperities (TM) and surely erupt in joy, thankful that they are finally able to be, to quote the dick himself, be "free of the conditions that breed despair, hatred, and violence."
(Footnote: Man, though some GOP is "all the same", some has changed a lot in 23 years. Rhetorically, especially.) BobJohnson (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

China should give Tibet its independence back. --Trans Fem Agenda 21:35, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I bless you all with new YouTube content.

https://youtu.be/8F_N4gJf1MQ?si=D90_H_f0ANKZH0Tk

It's been a while so I am sharing my new content. Hail to the Trans Zombie Queen. --Trans Fem Agenda 21:33, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

RationalWiki got sued again (twice)

The RationalMedia Foundation has just been hit with TWO lawsuits.

Trent tmtoulouse shared this news in the Board of Trustees chatroom on the official RationalWiki Discord server, and immediately announced that he is completely done with RationalWiki:

Since I am no longer involved in raising or spending money, or making any operational descisions, I feel like I have abdocated that role a long time ago and have essentially resigned my position. I am happy to offer personal opinion if asked. If any of hte suits move forward with me listed as a defendant I intend to file an affidative stating my resignation. As such I can not take action to precure a lawyer or anything for the foundation. —Tmtoulouse

DuceMoosolini read this and immediately resigned from the Board.

There is nobody at the wheel. Unless somebody steps up and starts doing some real heavy lifting when it comes to reincorporating in Oregon (a state with good anti-SLAPP laws that would specifically protect us from lawsuits like this), these lawsuits are, potentially, the death of the Foundation. Star of David.png Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 01:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

What's funny about the Smith lawsuit (aside from the fact that it is pretty much a joke) is if there are any Oliver Smith nuggets online, they are probably actually *on* Rationalwiki... as, despite his personal ban, the small size of this Wiki (plus the on-topic nature) means that more of his junk is on here. Wikipedia has more protection against "disruptive sock" type stuff and my impression is his sock shit did not go far there. If Smith plays a part in somehow KOing Rationalwiki, way to go on the self-own! Hell, I'm of the mood that a "mass delete" of racialism articles might be a good protection against the long-running brouhaha now that such has reached lawsuit levels. Hope that's what Smith wanted!
The other thing though is the Smith lawsuit has the audacity to complain that being blocked from a service by a moderator is defamation. This not only should be easy to dismiss on Section 230 grounds, but if Rationalwiki is forced to "lets it go", it possibly sets a bad precedent for any Internet service with voluntary moderation service. Add in the fact that Smith is a habitual court abuser (Substack recently swatted a Smith lawsuit away with a motion to dismiss) and you'd think the actual lawyering required to dismiss this would be pretty easy, and maybe one can get some help. Substack has some Kik messenger folks to help out. We don't . BobJohnson (talk) 03:22, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
@Stabby the Misanthrope If the RMF dies, will RW die too? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 11:19, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
I would take this threat seriously. If the RMF loses its domain, somebody could still copy and paste the content elsewhere, but we'd no longer have the same PageRank. Also, legal reports to Google could further nuke it at that point. We should probably do some minimal course correction, but also signal that we do mean and will abide by it in the future. This could help us in court. KaDaShOvA (talk) 11:31, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
I suggest [unless legally impossible] that RW raids it's reserves and moves to Oregon now, with the hope/expectation we'll raise the final ~$3k in the interim. What's more, fucking employ someone to do the 'heavy lifting' if we can't find anyone to do it. A nest egg is worthless to a dead org. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
That's kinda beside the point, though. Speaking as a law student, both lawsuits will have to be defended wherever your state of incorporation was at the time of the purported offense. Where was your domain registered? Bookability (talk) 12:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
I know that. The point is that to avoid any more hits on RW. Anyway, Oliver is defending themselves from the UK and isn't a lawyer so I actually suspect RW could fight that one if we could find somebody to merely turn up to the courtroom. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Is there a way to download the entirety of RationalWiki's articles for offline viewing? Assuming servers do get shutoff. Impiricism (talk) 12:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Rationalwiki is available on Kiwix for download (like other Wikis), but it has not been updated since March 2021. BobJohnson (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
This is a great website but has proven to be unsafe in a few areas; until a month ago there wasn't even any rule in place to block users from off-site harassment. There should be a proper legal team like Wikipedia and a phone number. The Foundation has had months to move but nothing was done, they are still in New Mexico. There should be a solid board of trustees (2 have resigned in the last 48 hours). Duce is a good editor it's sad to see he resigned.
I have been threatened with legal action from one of the above plaintiffs in the last 24 hours telling me he is going to reveal my identity and expose me if I do not stop editing here. I made the mistake of giving him some information about myself. I lecture at universities on veganism so I do not want my identity leaked because dozens of carnivore diet loons will come after me. I have decided to resign from editing RationalWiki. Other Wikis are safer to edit. There isn't even a check-user here nor a ban list or sock-puppet investigation list and not enough senior admins. If there was a check-user we could have created a sock-puppet investigation for Smith and listed his old accounts. He has complained that trustees have blocked accounts under his real name incorrectly. I am not sure why users were using his real life name. Perhaps a policy should have been in place where real names cannot be used like at Wikipedia per the OUTING rule. I have spent many hours creating detailed articles on this website debunking pseudoscience. I couldn't care less about "HBD" researchers. If RationalWiki votes and wants to delete all those articles just remove them, I would support BobJohnson on that. Oldman4 (talk) 13:46, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
This is America; when it comes to "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press", money rules above all. Wikipedia has enough income to have a team of 6 figure lawyers to swat aside bullshit suits. We don't.
I personally have long been in favor of "Checkuser" (e.g. IP logging); I am also in favor, in light of the current web, of Wikipedia-like rules on editing from VPNs. There is an "old guard" who used to edit this Wiki in the more wild west days of the Internet; they don't edit much at all now, but will mysteriously pop up anytime discussions about these rules come up, and have successfully swatted those rules away so far. Conservapedia level trolls are not my concern here; they are nothing compared to the trolls and gaming in the current environment. So much of the old guard is IMHO a bunch of naive fucks living in the past.
From what I can tell, Jonathan Anomaly (my guess of who said harasser is) seems to have recently been trying to scrub any perceived "right wing" associations in order to shine up his eugenic, Silicon Valley-appeal "superbaby" startups, and the Rationalwiki article's high Google rank (and the fact that the org is in no state to defend itself) probably irks. I think the lawsuit is incorrect from the start (point 39 is wrong, they fucking spelled pseudoscience as "pseuydoscience" in point 41 showing the slop; point 47 is wrong, Anomaly *is* a public figure by his published books alone; point 51 is wrong, the article says that Anomaly published in the antisemitic Unz Review, not that Anomaly was an antisemite itself; etc.) The lawsuit seems like it tries to quibble with "technical correct", which any competent lawyer should be able to tear apart. But you need money for "competent lawyer".
Anomaly got a nice Hope not Hate investigation into him, which actually led to articles in The Guardian and even the fucking Daily Mail; from what I can tell, significant chunks of the RW articles came from that. This is not one of the "shit HBD" articles, and given that parts of Silicon Valley (particularly the Elon Musk side of the fence) seem to want to do a speedrun of 1920s eugenics intellectual climate (sigh), it's more relevant than a lot of the Smith stuff. But this is America, money rules above all, and shit like this is why our RSF press freedom index is down in the dumps, aligned next to Gabon and Belize instead of Norway and the Netherlands. Fortunately it will be a lot tougher for him to go after the UK orgs (assuming the reporting is solid, which it seems to be); for a start, the UK laws don't like that eugenics IVF shit up there to begin with. BobJohnson (talk) 14:33, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
As for the offline download, could a board member not get a XML dump from Special:Statistics or Special:Export? Phantasmagoria (talk) 18:53, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
There was a 2023 dump of RW on the Internet Archive,[2] though one should be very cautious about using Torrent downloads due to the risk of embedded malware from Torrent servers.[3] Bongolian (talk) 20:17, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Deleting HBD/racialism articles

The HBD and racialism articles are the primary reason why Rational Wiki is worthwhile.

The Anomaly lawsuit makes clear that publicizing facts about Anomaly's history of promoting race pseudoscience has impacted his career and that's a good thing.

I think it's very likely that Kirkegaard is assisting Anomaly, since Anomaly appears to be a member in good standing of the Kirkegaard network via Aporia. Kirkegaard has plenty of money thanks to plutocrat racists. And the timing of the Anomaly lawsuit is no doubt exactly because RMF is publicly fundraising to move to a less SLAPP-happy state.

I'm no lawyer, but it looks pretty clear that Anomaly's lawsuit is pure SLAPP. And in addition to deserving to lose the lawsuit, Anomaly deserves - and likely will get - a good dose of Streisand effect in response to his assault on the First Amendment. Pinkerite (talk) 22:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Oliver Smith

I have defended Smith in the past at Rational Wiki, because he has been a target of attacks by the race pseudoscience mob, and once gave me a heads-up when I was being attacked on Twitter by Razib Khan and Emil Kirkegaard and others in tandem.

A month ago Smith mentioned to me via email that he wanted to sue RMF and I told him not to, and I thought I had convinced him. So I was surprised when some troll spammed my RW page with the info of the Smith lawsuit. I agree with the assessment that Smith's lawsuit is garbage. He has apparently decided to make RMF his scapegoat since he can't identify the people who are harassing him by sending nasty snailmail to him and his neighbors. I have no doubt Kirkegaard is behind the harassment, since Kirkegaard has a history of harassing Smith and has financial motivation.

Yet ironically, and stupidly, Smith's lawsuit is aiding and abetting Kirkegaard and friends by causing more stress on RMF. So going forward I will not be defending Oliver Smith. Pinkerite (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I told you he was an arsehole. Spud (talk) 14:01, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Duce is back (and Board response)

I have rescinded my resignation from the Board due to its near-complete inactivity since the two lawsuits were announced. I am currently in the process of lighting a fire under everyone's asses so we can organize a response. The Board owes it to the community to at least put up a fight. I am making this announcement publicly for two reasons. First, so the community can hold the Board accountable to this promise of action. Second, because myself or other Board members might ask members of this community for assistance or advice. This is RationalWiki's darkest hour, but I believe that if we all come together, this will be followed by our finest moments. Pizza SLICE.gifDuceMoosoliniYour friendly RW dictator moderator 14:52, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Bravo! Pinkerite (talk) 15:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I have posted the first in a series about Anomaly on Pinkerite. Pinkerite (talk) 15:31, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, DuceMoosolini! Let's support our board in this fight. Bongolian (talk) 16:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

any good articles with anti loli arguments here?

trying to fight some people who defend it. any recourses for good rebukes? Alastor (talk) 17:00, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Assuming "loli" = "lolicon"... not here. RW once had a child pornography article for a small bit, but since it was largely written by a pedo apologist and was very bad, it was nuked; nothing has replaced it. The Wikipedia article doesn't look too bad, but the oodles of pages in the talk section perhaps indicate some. "controversy". So I don't know.
I will say that, personally, as someone who is not from Japan and also has literally no exposure to lolicon anime (the dubbed episodes of Crayon Shin-chan that aired on Adult Swim at one time do not count :) ), it is difficult for me to comment on something like this fully in the generic. Cultures do have different paradigms; I have "initial thoughts" but I'm not sure if such are "ignorant gaijin" thoughts from a Japanese perspective. BobJohnson (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Let them eat cake

As Trump intends to impose a 200% tariff wall against the EU (see news website of choice)the brioche of the original phrase will be unavailable.

What next?

Whom the gods wish to destroy...? Anna Livia (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

So far... Trump's tariff war and related chaos activity is largely an American made self-own, as I see it.
The Economist certainly has not been amused, echoing what seems to be the general investor mood. They've run articles on how American assets are no longer seen as super-exceptional like they used to and how even the dollar is suffering.
While a tariff war could eventually affect everyone, currently "every stock market but the US" is considerably outperforming the US markets.
One difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2 is that, unlike before, Trump seems hellbent on ignoring the markets (even calling them "globalist" once). So this probably will continue for a while.
The Wall Street Journal's top story currently is something about DEI on college campuses. I guess even in American business world, sticking it to those uppity Others and those uppity college campuses who have the audacity the educate the plebs is far more important than commerce. It's bizarre... it's like the upper class twit sect of society is now fully in charge here. (It's not like there wasn't American big business twits before, Investor's Business Daily wouldn't exist if that wasn't the case, but still...)
I don't think the economic chaos has filtered down to Main Street yet, but Walmart has already warned earlier that pain, in the form of higher prices, would be coming with a Trump tariff war. Should that happen (and my bet is it will), will this break the spell of some of the Trump cult who currently think that Trump can do no wrong? Not confident on that. BobJohnson (talk) 15:58, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't think you need to 'break the MAGA cult'. Just fuck off enough a) those who don't like the Orange car salesman or his 'anti-woke' antics but think he's 'good for business/economics' and b) those 1/3 of the adult American population who were sufficiently unimpressed by both Harris and Trump to not bother voting last November. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:09, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
It seems to me that a lot of big businesses in the States have been more concerned with convincing others that they are successful rather than actually being successful. The proliferation of stock buybacks and openings for jobs that don't exist in the past decade or so are examples of this. The on-again off-again tariff bullshit of the current administration is removing the bottom pieces from an already unstable Jenga tower of bad business practices. Gabaghoul 🥩 16:28, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Yes, a huge amount of the stock buybacks / mergers / takeovers was funded by 'cheap money' [ie debt with very low interest rates] which produced a massive asset bubble which ultimately made a lot of these firms 'less profitable' because their profits vs capital deployed was going down due to the very asset bubble. And while I don't deny the existence of 'ghost jobs' [ie jobs that don't actually exist] I think they're a lot smaller than imagined - that the more common situation is the advertising for openings which won't ever get filled because they are looking to hire [say] 'senior engineers with a decade's experience' on a interns pay and conditions. These Pointy-Haired Bosses then whine about 'folks having lack of gumption' and 'people don't want to work no more' to any who'll listen. But that's not why I came back so quick.
The reason I suspect the likes of the WSJ is still crowing about the 'ending of DEI' is that Murdoch, like most other of the oligarch class is moving to accommodate the 'new order', with the rider for the WSJ's case that they don't need to tell their readers the shit they can work out themselves from a combo of C-SPAN and Bloomberg Terminal. When reporters start saying 'at the risk of my job' before calling out shit you know the boot of self-censorship is starting to press quite firmly. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I feel like any sane, sensible human being who has even the slightest notion of how the economy works is very, very worried about the future right now. None of the policies Trump has enacted are even speculatively good for the economy. High tariffs are universally bad for the economy. The US cannot win a trade war with China. The US **absolutely** cannot win a trade war against China *and* the EU. --Ozzyboo (talk) 20:42, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I think Trump’s angry reaction, threatening a 200% tariff on European alcohol on response to the one entry (a 50% tariff on US whisky and bourbon) on EU’s extensive, targeted list of counter tariffs shows yet again how unprepared he and his administration was for this eminently predictable counter move and the dynamics of an escalating trade war overall.
The fact that Trump both ups the ante to such a ridiculous degree while choosing just one, seemingly arbitrary entry on the EU’s long list, smacks of the usual random rage responses that are by now a hallmark of both of Trump’s presidential terms.
Trump’s problem is that he’s clueless about how to handle counterparts who don’t just roll over and can’t easily be browbeaten, threatened or pressured into submission. Even worse, he seems not to understand that everyone has already realised that his shiftiness, untrustworthiness and transactional view of negotiations makes it pointless for anyone to try and achieve any kind of grand bargain with him or his administration.
This means that every counterpart who has any real choice in the matter is going to either respond fairly harshly (such as the trade responses from the EU and China and also Canada and Mexico to some extent) or they’re going to sandbag the negotiations with lots of little symbolic concessions (Canada and Mexico) to try to draw out the process until Trump’s limited attention is drawn somewhere else and/or US corporate lobbyists get enough exceptions carved out of Trump’s initial tariffs to make them more practical and less economically disastrous.
In all of these cases, Trump is floundering because he clearly has no exit strategy, or any coherent idea of how to respond to any of these, rather predictable, countermoves, as he also lacks any clear goal or endgame, since he basically doesn’t know what he’s doing and is an effin’ moron when it comes to international trade (and so, so many other areas too). ScepticWombat (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

A secular perspective on Ramadan

Hey, folks. It's Ramadan, and I'm partaking as well. I am not religiously Muslim, but I am culturally Muslim, and engage in it less for religious reasons and more for cultural ones. Please be mindful and respectful to the people around you during this time! Not every Muslim who partakes in Ramadan does so for very religious reasons, and every Muslim engages with Ramadan differently. --Ozzyboo (talk) 20:01, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Mahmoud Khalil

Trump is trying to deport a legal American resident for engaging in speech critical of Israel. What happened to "restoring free speech to America"? Antares (talk) 22:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Whenever MAGAs claim to be worried about free speech, what they really mean is rightists have a god given right to say whatever they want and shutting a right-winger up in anyway-arresting them for hate speech, banning them from a private forum, telling them to stop talking to you, anything-is a crime against nature. Left-wing views (or anything conservatives see as a left-wing view) are not protected and left-wingers (or anyone seen by conservatives as a left-winger) aren't really viewed as people entitled to rights.-Flandres (talk) 22:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, the supposed “free speech absolutism” of the right has always been an extremely obvious and openly hypocritical sham. Just look at Mr. “Restoring Free Speech to Twitter/XTM” and his capricious misrule. ScepticWombat (talk) 23:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I get the feeling that this is a test run. They deliberately chose this man in particular because of the content of his speech. Anyone who thinks they will only target pro-Palestine activists is a fool. Antares (talk) 23:10, 13 March 2025 (UTC)