I'm in a similar boat and I find it really hard to talk watches with folks who are experienced in the way of the Rolex AD.
I really enjoy cheaper vintage watches that call back to when everyone had one of them on their wrist.
Something about a semi-autonomous machine ticking away on your wrist, whether you're looking at it or not, using no electricity, is just intrinsically satisfying to me.
I got into watch servicing pre-covid, but never got into actual fabrication of parts. I mention pre-covid because it really got popular when everyone was stuck inside and there was a sudden loss of cheap ebay parts watches to pick from.
Rolex ADs are just a para-social gatekeeper for Veblen goods, but there's a huge resurgence in the entry level Swiss Automatic space with some fantastic value propositions in the likes of the enormously popular Tissot PRX 80 line (hello Rolex Land-dweller), or the more recent output from smaller marques like Christoper Ward who are producing COSC certified swiss-made watches for about 4x markup whilst Omega and the rest are jacking up prices quarter on quarter.
An Ad in the same style of many before it. Not through an ad agency, but the AI companies hyping their product by making their product seem scary and dangerous.
Does the press being an ad constitute the same thing as the information being false? If I advertize that my gun is dangerous, does the medium impact the truth value?
The medium is the message[0] might be of your interest. I personally wouldn't expect absolute truth in any advertisements or company statements, so some information are certain to be false, yes.
This person is either willfully ignorant, or an actual fascist attempting to blur the line.
This exact line of thought has been used for decades to subvert the actual history of the Nazi party and their co-operation with corporations, undermining of labor unions, assault on socialist groups via their brown shirts, etc.
This is a fascist talking point. It doesn't matter where the user possibly derived it from.
The "National Socialist" party was explicitly anti-socialist. Their talking points explicitly refuted class boundaries, and enforced "cultural" boundaries, to create the scapegoat of the Jews as the primary cause for societal turmoil.
Do not take this user seriously. Do not allow yourself to get into the weeds, they will not take any real discussion seriously. They are acting in bad faith.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
I'm saying you leaving a comment taking the name "National Socialist" literally is a well trodden path of misinformation and a long standing part of the post-war revisionism, such as the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth and the Double Genocide myth. It is not worth discussing seriously with you in particular, and I am writing for those reading these comments.
The Nazi party purposefully used the term "Socialist" as a method to draw people away from the actual socialist workers groups of the time.
These talking points are intended to blur the line of the very real evils of Nazi Germany.
These same talking points are used by actual racists, anti-Semites, and modern fascists to distance themselves from the real historical example of what happens when their views gain traction. Similar to how people who participate in Holocaust denial would be rooting for the very same Holocaust.
Well this is surprising for a few reasons. And pretty offensive. For what it's worth I'm pretty much the reverse of an anti Semite.
Pointing out that the Nazi party called themselves national socialists and had socialist policies does not make me a holocaust denier, Nazi apologist or anything else that you are attempting to label me as.
Your reaction to what I said is genuinely baffling to me. I'm a liberal through and through. The common enemy of communists and Nazis was liberals. In my view Nazis and communists are both sides of the same brutal coin.
I don't think you can be authoritarian and socialist. The structures of strict hierarchy necessary to be authoritarian necessarily oppose the egalitarian goals of socialism.
Many, many socialists condemn the Soviets, and even fought against them. Very few socialists believe that forcing the populace at gunpoint to be communist is a good plan.
Apart from the Socialist roots of the Nazi party (hence the name) and Fascism (Mussolini) , they have practiced a state planned economy which was far closer to Stalin's Soviet Union than to the United States
This doesn't mean the Nazis were not very much anti-communist, but subscribing Nazism to Capitalism is an extremely flat ideology-driven version of history
The libertarian / Randite strand of American hyper-capitalist ideology is ascendant and somewhat hegemonic in North American political education in schools and the like and it defines as "socialist" anything which involves "the government." To the point that we have people complaining in earnest that things Trump is doing that don't fit their Milton Friedman vibes are "socialist."
It deliberately strips the "social" part out of the ideological framing and replaces it with the state.
Which is also helped by the fact that "actual existing socialism" in the USSR etc did the same.
Also doesn't help that there has been effectively no organized socialist political presence in American politics (apart from the DSA pushing on the Democrats left wing, and Sanders I guess). This means that American politics reduces completely to a false "liberal" ("left" somehow) vs "conservative" dichotomy, both labels which don't describe anything about what they are anymore.
I've watched so many Americans get squirrely online when I've tried to draw a line on my own political viewpoint; no, I'm not liberal, I'm a socialist. This breaks their brains. Does not compute. Increasingly unfortunately here in Canada as well, partially as the NDP's unfortunate willingness to prop up Trudeau's Liberals when they were a minority.
I sometimes feel like we just need new, untainted, words.
You can point to the recent invasion of Lebanon and the image of an IDF soldier taking a sledge hammer to a statue of Jesus. Those might be the upset neighbors. Rightfully so as they were told to evacuate their homes so the homes could be leveled for a "buffer zone".
If Israel wants to be taken seriously as a nation of "normal people", they need to do something about the extreme nationalism and hate in their ranks, and the racket of protecting settlers who attack Palestinians in their homes.
I think a lot of the questions you pose have some interesting psychology behind them. Other countries don't have this same level of policing, but also have different prison systems.
I think a large amount of the danger American police face is due to how easily a single arrest can ruin your productive life. One facing the loss of their home, pets, job, important documents, sentimental items might not see the difference between losing everything, and losing everything and taking the guy who's taking it from you, with you.
If we had an actual system based on reform rather than punishment, I think the danger police would be in would be greatly reduced.
You also have things like qualified immunity and general protections for police against being sued for an unlawful arrest. An officer can incorrectly arrest you and you could lose everything and be simply shit out of luck.
If there's no repercussions for bad cops, there's no justice. If there's no justice, why would one play nicely with the law, therefore police are in danger.
> I think a large amount of the danger American police face is due to how easily a single arrest can ruin your productive life. One facing the loss of their home, pets, job, important documents, sentimental items might not see the difference between losing everything, and losing everything and taking the guy who's taking it from you, with you.
I don't think it's that complicated. Rather, I think that a lot of cops think they're in more danger than they really are. The vast, vast majority of people aren't going to gun them down for a traffic stop or for providing a warning about something. The situations where they're likely to get shot are exceedingly rare. By treating policing as some tremendously dangerous job we're completely ignoring the actual statistics, which show that firefighters and construction workers are far more routinely in physical danger.
The police then get carte blanche to walk around treating everyone like some dangerous creature ready to explode at the slightest provocation when most of us are just trying to get by and are pretty accepting of the benign law enforcement interactions we get.
Isn't it maybe because of the gun use here? in other countries is not like anybody can shoot you, even a civilians here feels like sometimes people get mad and just shoot each other
If you've ever walked up to your neighbor and politely asked them to do or not do something then by that logic you're putting yourself at immense physical risk. I think the vast majority of people, even gun owners, are generally civil and don't wish other people harm.
Given that gun owners skew conservative and the Republican party seems to currently exist to harm people conservatives don't like (e.g. trans people). I'd say that the majority of gun owners defiitely wish other people harm, if they didn't then they wouldn't have voted for the guy who ran on a platform of causing other people harm.
> even a civilians here feels like sometimes people get mad and just shoot each other
Outside of Florida, with its incredibly relaxed "stand your ground" laws, this isn't really an issue in most of the US. When civilians do go around shooting people like that, they usually get arrested and imprisoned. In Florida, especially if you're a retired cop, you can shoot people for talking on their phone in a movie theater, though. So maybe avoid that state if you value your life.
Or South Carolina where you can shoot or shoot at or wave your gun at people who are shoplifting or who you just feel like are shoplifting. Hell, shoot them in the back as they run away, having not stolen anything, after you waved your gun at them, and find yourself acquitted. Better not tell the jury that this isn't your first time doing it, though, or they might be prejudiced by thinking this is starting to become a habit!
The biggest danger American police are traffic accidents. Mostly because they spent a lot of time on the streets and accidents happen. They don't get shot at all that much.
What actually happens is that American police is basically unaccountable. It must be really egregious and on multiple camera for them to face any scrutiny. And even then it is easy for them to engineer situation where it is actually ok for them to kill or be violent. Meanwhile, non-cop is supposed to have perfect self control, perfect awareness of situation and be able to follow mutually exclusive instructions yelled at him from multiple cops simultaneously.
Unaccountable groups of people always end up behaving badly. Be it priests, isolated cults or cops.
this right here, our issue is mostly the accountability. Accountable people are much less likely to apply force when not needed. Trying to remember some citations, but there's really interesting data out there on citizen involved shootings v police ones. and I suspect the accountability is key.
I think it is more than a bit circular, though. Police and corrections unions are some of the biggest "tough on crime" lobbyists, to the extent that the latter have never been seen to go on the record for decriminalization of marijuana, for example.
And it's asymmetrical. "You can beat the rap, can't beat the ride" does a lot of heavy lifting: Sure. You might spend a couple of days in jail, though, you might need money for an attorney. And even if charges are dropped, or not even filed, many states make arrest records public regardless. Hell, the state of Florida will send you a bill for your jail time regardless of disposition, and guess what, not paying it is a felony.
And we've gone out of our way to protect police from the consequences of actively negligent or even malicious actions, because those same unions fear monger about cops quitting in droves if they have to face consequences for their actions.
What an odd insult to identify a group of people solely by the fact that they read (a particular subset of) books, and then say they can't read. The ability to read is one of the only things this group of people has in common!
I'm not sure I'd consider a trap an "autonomous weapon". The trap cannot select a target. It will go off for anyone unlucky enough to step in its trigger.
An autonomous drone will select a target and pull the trigger. It fills in the position of a human pulling a trigger, which is a decision.
Maybe if robots began deciding where to lay mines, i could hand it to you.
I really enjoy cheaper vintage watches that call back to when everyone had one of them on their wrist.
Something about a semi-autonomous machine ticking away on your wrist, whether you're looking at it or not, using no electricity, is just intrinsically satisfying to me.
I got into watch servicing pre-covid, but never got into actual fabrication of parts. I mention pre-covid because it really got popular when everyone was stuck inside and there was a sudden loss of cheap ebay parts watches to pick from.
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