Arguments I’m trying to stay out of, so I’m griping about them here, and also a dream report

[moon_custafer]

In a lot of what I’d consider moderate-left spaces, attitudes re the US election seem to have split into: 1. “Yes, it shouldn’t have been this close, but if Dems hold the House and win the presidency, that’s at least better than 4+ more years of Trump, and we have a chance of fixing some thing even if it will be the work of generations;” and 2. “The previous statement was gratingly naïve and saccharine in its optimism, why can’t you just admit that even if Biden wins, this is a Pyrrhic victory and America is doomed.”

I lean more towards the cautiously-hopeful-at-least-try side of things, but I also firmly believe you can’t argue someone out of a fit of depression, and I can’t stand watching the in-fighting; so I went over to a different forum and a different discussion, not directly about contemporary politics. Which is where I’m currently trying to resist answering someone who believes hunter-gatherer societies were if anything less egalitarian than agricultural ones because “their hierarchies would have been dependent on the ability to get along with other people,” with “oh come on how is that not true of all societies?”

What social skills I have are telling me I don’t need this kind of trouble, but the rest of my personality wants to construct arguments-- I mean, I think it’s one of the duties of a progressive society to build a safety net that protects even unlikeable or awkward people, but I also still think there are always going to be individuals who drive away everyone who makes their acquaintance, and you can do is try to find a balance between mitigating the damage and impinging on their freedom.

Anyway thanks for your patience (or if you skimmed over this, that’s ok too).

Meanwhile, one of my dreams last night involved working undercover as Hitler’s secretary in order to spy on him. In this dream, no doubt totally uninfluenced by current events, I kept thinking that while it was a good thing for humanity that Hitler kept making stupid decisions, it was also really painful to watch somebody constantly be that incompetent. srsly, he had a detail of highly-trained ninja bodyguards that he couldn’t resist showing off, so he ordered them moved away from their strategic positions so they could stand guard in front of his door, in full view and out in the open. Stupid dream Hitler.

Comments

[sovay]

I lean more towards the cautiously-hopeful-at-least-try side of things, but I also firmly believe you can’t argue someone out of a fit of depression, and I can’t stand watching the in-fighting

I tapped out of my very first online conversation today for that reason. I am one of the people who thinks that even if a Biden presidency is nothing but damage control, damage control is better than damage, and it is very difficult for me not to read (2) as "so you should die because I am tired of fighting," so I am reminding myself that everyone is stressed beyond belief and equally exhausted and depressive spirals are real and people are wrong on the internet all the time without me saying anything about it. I am glad you have found a totally different argument to try not to get sucked into!

srsly, he had a detail of highly-trained ninja bodyguards that he couldn’t resist showing off, so he ordered them moved away from their strategic positions so they could stand guard in front of his door, in full view and out in the open. Stupid dream Hitler.

This is honestly not all that far off from real Hitler. Fictional Nazis tend to be so much more competent than the real ones, who never showed the slightest hesitation to shoot their war effort in the knees if they could spend the budget on genocide instead. (Or march into Russia. One of the funniest pieces of slang I know from WWII continues to be the Napoleon-Gedächtnis-Renne—the Napoleon Memorial Race—which is what survivors of the retreat from Stalingrad called it.)

[dewline]

May no one ever be forced into a repeat of such stupidity by any head-of-government ever again.

[moon_custafer]

Oh yeah, fascists tend to mistake conformity for efficiency, parades for strength, and backstabbing for healthy competition. For a not-very-strategic, non-military person, my subconscious apparently spends a lot of time pondering this.

[sovay]

For a not-very-strategic, non-military person, my subconscious apparently spends a lot of time pondering this.

It's a bit environmentally unavoidable at the moment.

(I have now had multiple arguments with people in person and online about the state of Nazi nuclear weapons development, otherwise known as the all-star team of Heisenberg and some heavy water. I don't know why that is the hill people choose to die on—I mean, I suspect it's because most of them are American and it assuages the guilt of our successful use of nuclear force if it's framed as an arms race rather than a terror weapon—but man, they do.)

[moon_custafer]

It's a bit environmentally unavoidable at the moment.

I know, it’s just—I couldn’t strategize my way out of a paper bag, I suck at games like chess, and I’m so absent-minded and scatterbrained I’ve begun thinking I ought to get tested for ADHD. The only thing I’ve got working for me in this area is that I know it’s not one of my skills and I try to avoid any situation that would require it. But apparently there’s some other part of my brain that goes “wow, you know what would be a grave tactical error to make when you’ve got a perfectly good commando team at your disposal?”

[kore]

I guess that is also the hill people want to die on now because history made it truly clear that, just as you said, their war effort was crippled by genocide, not enhanced by it (the number of books I read that described the Nazi state as a truly efficient machine....).

otherwise known as the all-star team of Heisenberg and some heavy water

I read that out loud to T and he cracked up!

[sovay]

I guess that is also the hill people want to die on now because history made it truly clear that, just as you said, their war effort was crippled by genocide, not enhanced by it

And it's just not as impressive if we didn't fight the biggest big bad! Augh.

(the number of books I read that described the Nazi state as a truly efficient machine....)

I mean, the Nazi state said it was. It's just, you want to take the Nazi state's word on anything?

I read that out loud to T and he cracked up!

Hooray!

[moon_custafer]

“Herr Heisenberg, where is your colleague the jar of heavy water?”
“I have no idea where it is.”
“...”
“But, I can tell you exactly how fast it is moving.”

[sovay]

“But, I can tell you exactly how fast it is moving.”

Well played.

[kore]

Not to focus on the Nazis, but I've always been amazed at how Goebbels got completely derailed by making that propaganda flick in which they used actual soldiers? Because clearly that was more important than trying not to lose the war!

[sovay]

Not to focus on the Nazis

Focus on the Nazis! They are just different enough from our current stressors to provide distraction as well as valuable reasons to scream in historian!

but I've always been amazed at how Goebbels got completely derailed by making that propaganda flick in which they used actual soldiers? Because clearly that was more important than trying not to lose the war!

Okay, that may be a piece of Nazi stupidity I didn't know about. What?

[kore]

I don't remember all the details (just woke up from a nap, haha) but it was something like, he wanted to do an uplifting propaganda film about the Glory of German History, one of those big set patriotic historical pieces he loved, and so the director actually used soldiers as extras and did things like ship in hundreds of barrels of salt to simulate snow and they blew some amazing amount of money, millions of marks, and they were filming this IN 1944 and they were editing the film WHILE Berlin was being bombed by the Allies.

[sovay]

and so the director actually used soldiers as extras and did things like ship in hundreds of barrels of salt to simulate snow and they blew some amazing amount of money, millions of marks, and they were filming this IN 1944 and they were editing the film WHILE Berlin was being bombed by the Allies.

I'm trying to remember who on my friendlist had the tag "nazis! evil and stupid," but it is crying out to be applied here.

[sabotabby]

I liken it to a crashing plane and do you want it to level out before it crashes or just plunge nose-first.

That is some dream.

[kore]

That's really precisely it. Is this ideal? Fuck no. Is it great? Not even close. Does it beat people actually dying in ditches and the President literally going "let them die"?

[kore]

1. “Yes, it shouldn’t have been this close, but if Dems hold the House and win the presidency, that’s at least better than 4+ more years of Trump, and we have a chance of fixing some thing even if it will be the work of generations;”

O M F G do they not even REMEMBER what happened to the Obama administration post-2010? Mitch McConnell BLOCKED a Supreme Court nomination! A lot of that shit had never happened before! Biden and the House is great, but they're already talking about Biden picking Cabinet members that McConnell will find "acceptable" because of the confirmation process.

and 2. “The previous statement was gratingly naïve and saccharine in its optimism, why can’t you just admit that even if Biden wins, this is a Pyrrhic victory and America is doomed.”

Equally O M F G yeah, this is horribly close and the country is divided but it's not like that was NEWS (do these people not remember 2000? IwasthereGandalf.gif) and this is the kind of liberal woolly-headed thinking that leads to being eaten by plague because the Fuckward In Chief doesn't want to wear a mask for fear of smearing his pancake makeup


Dream Hitler sounds oddly familiar!