iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The real Mi-8 weighs about 2.4 tons when empty. Not unreasonable for the roof of a pickup/van that should be able to survive turning over without squishing its passangers. Also, it would be a *very* faithful decoy of a heli that's as rare as it's old...

I assume this is caused by drones and missiles veering off course due to GPS and communications jamming? Still genuinely surprised to see one fall 60 km beyond the closest border.

They/Them Army | Know Your Meme

Aaaand the girl's side just vaporised the guy's heavy armour division because she could spot them early and quickly call in fire support, and it turns out manliness isn't particularly useful for surviving precision guided munitions flying at you.

knowyourmeme.com

They/Them Army refers to memes referencing a viral tweet about Joe Biden and the United States Army as a "They/Them Army" in an attempt to label them as we

The ultra-stereotypical TikTok girl is from a they/them army that accepts her personality. Her training probably included a lot battlefield awareness, cooperation and individual agency.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The guy is from an army where manliness is the prime virtue, and his military training probably spent a lot of time on physical fitness, obeying hierarchy and telling them that their enemies are weak. The armoured division indicate they at best follow a last decade's military doctrine.

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"Sovereignity for me, not for thee" is just every corrupt oligarch's motto "accountability for thee, not for me" taken at grand scale.

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The university system being good at assimilating people is of little solace if you see free-thinking liberals, willing to challenge dogma and exclusion, as a threat. And unsurprisingly, there's a correllation between racism, anti-intellectualism and anti-liberalism...

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Devil gets to keep its face for another update, but it lost its haircut.

People who chose to study multiple subjects exist in our system, but they're rare, and hinging your survival on them is doomed to fail. (It's on the other hand pretty common to drop out within your first year and pick a different subject instead, but that's not what the OP was about.)

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And even when we get more free choice in later years, there will also be a lot of interesting advanced courses in our chosen subject competing for our attention, and unless you have a special interest in another subject, you usually pick all courses from them.

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In our colleges/universities, we usually pick a programme that locks us into a set curriculum for the first few years. If you want to study anything outside of that, you have to either study more than full time (and they're usually on another campus and overlap your schedule) or take a sabbatical.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This Ross fellow didn't exactly express himself in the smoothest way, but I think he's expressing genuine confusion, not trying to dunk on anyone. I was also very surprised the first time my American friends told me about Gen Ed, because the Swedish educational system doesn't work that way either.

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Don't forget option three (which Trump is quite fond of): Saying that the lowered living standards are a necessary sacrifice to destroy the enemy.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Why are they so obsessed with the title "czar"??

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A tiny part in every one of them do get it, and they resent women for it.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

You would if your cheese shops would actually stock any cheese.

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Heh, frontline looks like the outstretched head of a devil. Looking forward to seeing it's face punched in!

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Maxar provided photos taken from space using their own satellites, taken before Ukraine liberated Bucha. They're an American commercial company with no affiliation with the Ukrainian state. Do you think it's reasonable to doubt their independence even with no evidence to the contrary?

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I guess they've basically always looked like that, and continuity is a way to telegraph that you value content over aesthetics.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Assuming this isn't all just highly embellished fangirlism, sounds like Ukraine struck a real high value target.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Well spotted! Also, the drone appears rather slim and light without it, further suporting that it's the battery (and maybe also the explosive charge).

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Good thing the drive wasn't programmed to detonate after (prolonged) loss of signal.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

You already alluded to it above, but I think that it's worth pointing out that this primarily applies to big crises. The US' ability to call in favours will likely remain seriously harmed until trust is reestablished, which probably will take longer if no new big crisis rolls around.

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

From what I've understood, all Geran are actually manufactured at Yelabuga Drone Factory, which is an absolutely huge site. Ukraine hit it twice, but it's far from the front line and heavily protected. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelabug...

en.wikipedia.org

Yelabuga drone factory - Wikipedia

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Here's my little token for a more peaceful night.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Especially since far right movements feed off distrust and disillusionment with politicians, while far right policies (even when watered down by centrists) are terrible for the economy and everyone's well-being.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Are you sure that's a dolphin pen? It looks like it's placed on top of the pier, not in the water behind it. It also looks much more rickety than the floating pens seen on Google Maps.

:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Expanding on this: Being easily impressible can also be an evolutionary feature. It's good if we fear what is dangerous and don't fear what isn't dangerous, and the family group probably knows what's what better than our genes do. Unfortunately, sometimes the group is wrong.

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Point is, it doesn't need to be true for every human for it to lead to fascism, a lot of people are after all extremely wary of fascism. But maybe it is true for enough people for them to in modern times form an ideology around it, and maybe that ideology naturally is fascism?

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(I wouldn't write it like this, but the word "reductive" has been used so many times in a row that I have to stick to the meme. :P ) Isn't it a bit reductive to define "human predisposition" to only apply to that which is true for all humans? Is the term then actually useful?

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Also, it is possible for the fascists to seize multiple parties and form a fascist-bootlicker coalition, at which point they can let loose on democracy the same way the Republicans have. But it usually takes longer to reach this point, with more opportunities for blunder.

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The flipside is that anti-fascist coalitions tend to become a bit too diverse and struggle to agree on a unified policy. The majority of voters doesn't tend to like that either, so it can be hard to kick out the fascists for good.

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Also, the majority of the voters don't tend to like fascists. If their favoured party decides to collaborate with the fascists, but there is a close ideological neighbour who takes a stance, many will abandon the former for the latter.

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This hampers fascist movements somewhat, as they need to form coalitions with non-fascist parties. And while those parties can be naïve and self-serving, their representatives usually aren't entirely on-board with attempting to dismantle the democratic system from day one.

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The benefit of this is that minor parties have a much easier chance to earn seats in government, and major parties rarely ever become majority parties. This forces major parties to negotiate with their minor ideological neighbours to form majority coalitions, often offering up some concessions.

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Not really. The alternative to FPTP is proportional representation. Under it you don't vote for a single representative to represent you, but rather which party you want to lend more power to. (There is usually some way to boost a specific candidate, but most voters don't tend to use it)

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If it was synthetic, people would have to be taught to want fascism, and while we see some of that, I don't think it can even closely explain the rather explosive growth fascist sentiment has shown from time to time.

Okay, yes, they co-evolved. But I do think the emergence of fascism is organic, not synthetic. I.e. there are large groups of people who - when put in a modern society and given certain circumstances - want what fascism offers, and they will eventually coalesce their nascent ideologies into fascism.

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Was it the umlaut? :P But, yeah, I see what you mean. But also, "why don't everyone everywhere cooperate?" is a question that answers itself. And when it came to doing the truly impressive part, the development of the vaccines, the US was as good a partner as anyone.

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The UK is also first past the post, winner takes it all. I don't know about how it works Israel (or Hungary, or Serbia), though.

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At least for xenophobia, a genetic pre-disposition toward "the out-group wants to kill us" makes perfect evolutionary sense if the out-group often does indeed want to kill you (over scarce resources).

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The boring answer is that it's hard and not enough people are dying of the usual viruses for us to feel it's worth going all-in. But when they do (see Covid), we absolutely do cooperate. (Also, very good song, thanks for the share!)

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I think that's exactly what Bret means by "collides": not antithesis but violent synthesis. Modernity doesn't allow for primitive aggression, but it doesn't fully do away human want for it. That want struggled to find form compatible with modernism until it eventually coalesced into fascism.

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Something being "human nature" doesn't mean it's present in each and every human. We need a term for this stuff that a lot of people are unthinkingly pre-disposed toward because it's (probably) in our genes. Otherwise we won't be able to discuss it.

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:3jörn @bearmarshal.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Wait, fascist movements come before the ideology of fascism? How does that work?

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I don't know (the Russian warblogger) Dronebomber's methods, but I find their counts in the range 200-500 to be more realistic. I suspect the mobile fire groups may be overreporting for personal gain, or shot-down drones are invented to make the number of successful strikes seem less embarrasing.