Also the most effective. We’ll be digging ditches on Mars someday, probably.

The Roman Legions had a lot of advantages, but one of the biggest was that they were treated as an empire-sized construction crew! Good way to keep those rowdy soldiers too busy to get into trouble, too…

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O17399/bronze-kundika-silver-inlaid-with-bottle-unknown/

My current psychiatrist doesn’t want to prescribe me any stimulants because of the potential for abuse. For the record, I have no, uh, record of drug use. I don’t even fucking drink. I get the caution, but it’s deeply frustrating.

Cringe Bronze Age Empire: “We’re going to condemn you for a thousand years in our writings!”

Chad Sea Peoples: “I can’t fucking read”

Well, I apologize. It’s not the first time my aggressive tone has been… more hostile than it’s meant. I like to hammer points hard to ensure there’s no ‘way out’ of the counter-argument that could be brushed off, like ambiguity or a lack of severity, but the bitterness and sarcasm employed sometimes makes it sound accusatory towards the arguer and not the point, though that’s not how it’s meant.

I mean, more hostile than it’s meant towards someone I’m not trying to be hostile towards. Obviously I cut the brakes when I want to be hostile because I’m dealing with a fascist or like cretin.

It was as I was walking to the library to pay off a 10-year old late fee, no less!

Last winter, a 20$ blew right by me in the wind and I caught it.

Red-Brown alliance.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1464/figure-unknown/

But the second there isn’t agreement, boom, a feeling of instant enemies.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t regard you as an enemy, and I can show receipts on the kind of vitriol I shower on people whom I actively dislike - it’s not like this. This was just a heated argument over an issue two people feel strongly about. They happen.

Man, if you feel I’m being vitriolic towards you, I can assure you, I don’t feel like you’re a bad person for holding the view that you do. You aren’t coming from a position of “Fascism is good, so Snowden is good”, you’re just denying what I see as a fairly plain interpretation of the events. I don’t think you’re a dipshit or a fascist like I think of some other people who’ve put forth bad arguments. I think you just hold a bad viewpoint on this particular issue. We all do sometimes.

I think that the issue of Snowden is a relatively important one. I do hold plenty of vitriol for Snowden, but he’s not here, in this conversation, so his feelings are a nonissue here even if you think they’re important. He’s not likely to be on Lemmy browsing neck-deep in a comment thread. He’ll live.

Yeah, I’m not here to discuss politics from the point of “How does the other person feel about my criticism of a third party whose behavior influences more people than you or I will ever even speak to?” but “Is this correct or incorrect? Is this moral or immoral? Is this a valid argument, or invalid?”

You feel emptier after having read someone criticize someone you’ve never met for choosing to flee to a fascist regime, support that fascist regime’s talking points during an ongoing genocide, and still get hailed as a hero by some corners of the internet?

I think you’re taking this altogether too personally.

You would have zero way of knowing what his exact situation was and where he could go, he had literal minutes to make his plan,

Minutes to make his plan.

Are you going to keep to this? Because I can give you quite the outline of Snowden’s actions leading up to him fleeing the country, and ‘minutes to make a plan’ is not included in that.

and I have no fucking clue what point you think you’re making by comparing a country he literally has no choice but to stay in, that everyone “falls out of windows” in all the time, to a country he could definitely leave, maybe make better, and had an idea how to escape from.

“He did something that was beneficial. This does not make him a good person. It does not make him brave. It certainly doesn’t make him wise. He’s a cowardly dipshit who is now supporting a fascist regime.”

Also man, your tone is incredibly condescending. And since you’re a mod, I’m just waiting for you to ban me everywhere you can.

I don’t ban people for disagreeing with me. And certainly not in any place they hadn’t broken the rules in.

You’re so far only convinced me that A) you think a lot about how much you despise Snowden, someone I’ve considered a hero for a decade

Yep, I reconsidered the issue in-depth after the Ukrainian War began.

B) you don’t respect me at all.

It’s the internet, man. You’re words on a screen putting forth shitty arguments. Tomorrow you may be putting forward good arguments; tomorrow you may be putting forth bad arguments. I take things as they come.

“He went to Nazi Germany out of desperation, when he had numerous other choices that weren’t Nazi Germany” is a moral statement. Or rather, a statement of lack of morals.

I hated him much less before the Ukraine War started. I was willing to accept that he had just made a dumb decision, and that he was just a coward for lending credibility to the fascist government he was under. After his comments and constant dodges on the Ukrainian War? I interpret his motivations in a much more negative light.

People have horrible political views and say stupid shit in their early twenties.

Oh, okay, so if I brought proof that he was still a libertarian dipshit now, you’d believe me? Or is it “He was a libertarian dipshit then, but now he’s just saying the same things they are”?

And when they live in authoritarian countries they’d rather not live in,

When they flee to authoritarian countries with countless other options on the table, you mean.

they can’t criticize their governments.

Oh, okay, so risking punishment in the US was fine, but risking punishment in Russia is too far for him. Very convenient level of bravery, the perfect medium. There are ordinary Russians even now who continue to openly criticize the government, but I guess Snowden just isn’t as brave as them. Very very curious level of bravery.

I’m sorry, do I have to outline the numerous actions of Russia in and before 2013 that made it quite clear they were a fascist state? “He went to Nazi Germany before it invaded Czechoslovakia” is not the excuse you think it is.

Why are you so combative about this? I read three articles and in not one did he say anything overt

Except for the part where he was denying Russia’s imminent intent to invade Ukraine. Funny that when he’s defending Russia he can be overt, but when criticizing it, he can’t. But yes, I’m sure he’s a very heroic man with great principles. Definitely not a libertarian dipshit with the usual conflicting opinions depending on whether the administration is seen as liberal or not. He called for whistleblowers to be killed, and then became one.

You’re really going to compare this Nazi Germany…? Yikes.

… you’re really going to say modern Russia, a brutal totalitarian state, invading a neighboring sovereign state unprovoked and performing genocide isn’t comparable to Nazi Germany?

… really?