Dmitry Grozoubinski

Gaz @evilgaz.bsky.social [ View ] Nov 11, 2023 at 17:17 UTC

Lovely fun session playing some #DnD Radiant Citadel #ActualPlay for Unconventional GMs with @burnafterrunning.bsky.social at the helm. Come for the chili eating contest, and @benofdungeons.bsky.social prestidigitation, stay for @dmitryopines.bsky.social architectural purism.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 31, 2023 at 15:58 UTC

The comedy here is in the right wing press attempting to paint the left as somehow dominating politics...

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 31, 2023 at 15:53 UTC

Yes, in a truly horrifying turn of events the closest thing the Republicans currently have to a centrist is Mitch McConnel (!).

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 31, 2023 at 15:51 UTC

Yeah, but he's not being dragged down by a bunch of college lefties who want him to send the All Blacks to liberate Gaza.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 31, 2023 at 15:48 UTC

This is really funny. In the anglophone world, the major 'left wing' parties are lead by Joe Biden, Keir Starmer, Justin Trudeau, Anthony Albonese and Chris Hipkins. Literally none of them face any kind of meaningful challenge to their leadership from the left. Not one.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 12:11 UTC

Criminals generally can't veto their own convictions and don't rely on the State asking for volunteers when it comes to enforcement.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:19 UTC

Link back to @ozkaterji.bsky.social full thread on Twitter: x.com/OzKaterji/st...

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:18 UTC

6/ At the end of the day though, as @ozkaterji.bsky.social implies, the decisions remain fundamentally sovereign ones. Israel is in control of what it does next, and everyone else, including international laws and institutions, can at most hope to influence their decisions - not shape them.

/end

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:18 UTC

5/ I personally think UNGA votes are helpful as a formal depiction of where global sentiment lies. I also personally think it's useful, in addition to any moral arguments, to be able to say to a country that its behaviour is in breach of the binding legal promises it has signed on to.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:17 UTC

4/ Countries with influence are not, and may never be, ready to accept the possibility of an international court ruling a major decision like going to war is illegal, if that ruling has more authority than the purely moral. I don't think any UN reform process could or would change that.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:16 UTC

3/ What's infuriating about this is that reinforcing the normative power of international law rhetorically requires a great deal of exaggeration, selective vision and hypocrisy. To make the case that international law matters we have to ignore all the times it clearly doesn't and didn't.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:16 UTC

2/ What little power international law has is almost entirely normative. It only matters as long as countries believe it matters - and so for lack of better options we repeat ad nauseum that it does, while also arguing its broad benefits outweigh any specific constraints.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 28, 2023 at 11:16 UTC

1/ International law lacks enforcement because major powers negotiating it did not want mechanisms that could kinetically prevent, curtail or punish the pursuit of their ends, even if the means involved breach the letter or spirit of the law. They still don't.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 26, 2023 at 12:59 UTC

My recent personal experience is that this advice may also be valuable to people who do have time to write a book.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 26, 2023 at 11:51 UTC

My epitaph.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 26, 2023 at 11:47 UTC

You need those making a moral case, realism be damned, to move the overton window, applying pressure to expand what is possible. You need those picking the least worst option to actually climb through that window once it's moved.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 26, 2023 at 11:45 UTC

I genuinely believe a lot of the toxicity on this platform comes from these two groups yelling at each other for being unrealistic (group 1), or immoral (group 2), when any kind of progress actually requires both.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 26, 2023 at 11:44 UTC

Room-temperature take that may still make everyone mad: 1. There is value clearly stated moral objections to actions, even if the speaker can't articulate a politically or practically viable alternative. 2. There is also value in identifying the best of the imperfect options available.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 24, 2023 at 22:33 UTC

I thankfully don't get very many, but I know others who are really struggling.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 24, 2023 at 17:05 UTC

I think @t0nyyates.bsky.social is collecting them.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 23, 2023 at 09:01 UTC

I still post on X more than I do here, simply because my audience is forty times the size and the reach is exponentially larger. However, as fewer and fewer of the people I want to hear from are popping up in my feed, I imagine my enthusiasm will wane.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 23, 2023 at 08:57 UTC

Second, so far that hasn't been my personal experience. I had this tweet do numbers the other day, and there was obviously a small percentage of VERY abusive responses/QTs but I knew what I was doing and kind of expected it. That said, I've never been a particular hate magnet on Twitter.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 23, 2023 at 08:52 UTC

A couple of thoughts on this. First, these are not people unused to being yelled at. I follow a lot of broadly centre-left journalists who both the right and left FREQUENTLY take issue with very, very loudly. Even they're feeling chased out of town. Something's changed.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 23, 2023 at 08:51 UTC

Just anecdotally a number of people I follow on Twitter have recently said they're getting close to breaking point. The sheer volume of just the most awful abuse imaginable, algorithmically boosted and delivered with complete impunity is becoming unsustainable for them.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 19, 2023 at 09:04 UTC

No idea!

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 16, 2023 at 16:12 UTC

To really teach them a lesson you should have then made them try to get those arguments past 2nd Committee.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 16, 2023 at 12:54 UTC

Absolutely none - which is why if anyone wants to see any kind of specific outcome they need to focus on persuading Israel and influencing the Israeli political calculus.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 16, 2023 at 12:42 UTC

I still don't think that changes my previously held opinion that the US could not (hypothetically) prevent an Israeli invasion of Gaza by threatening or withholding these funds... but 16% is clearly no joke.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 16, 2023 at 12:41 UTC

Something I found interesting is that US military financing for Israel amounts to ~16% of Israel's annual defence budget.

16% isn't huge, but it's certainly considerable and more than I would have guessed.

Source: www.stimson.org/2023/in-shad...

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 15, 2023 at 18:34 UTC

If he truly believed in EU trade he'd change his name to Alfredo Pappardelle.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 15, 2023 at 18:33 UTC

A not-insubstantial reason behind online political discourse being so toxic is that on every issue imaginable the "this is the morally correct outcome" and the "these are the politically viable options, pick one" crowds are locked together yelling "COWARD" at one another.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 14, 2023 at 13:42 UTC

I guess because even if you don't believe they have done so already, it is not impossible to imagine a Bibi led Israel going too far in pursuit of entirely valid objectives, and the US is one of the few actors who even has a chance of impacting their thinking.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 14, 2023 at 10:41 UTC

4/ You can absolutely dismiss that as moral cowardice, a failure of US leadership or 'thoughts and prayers'. I'm also inclined to be sceptical. With that said, I'm equally unsure Biden has other options here that would actually make the situation better, or what those might be. /end

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 14, 2023 at 10:41 UTC

3/ Israel has the supplies it needs to do anything and everything it wants to Gaza in the short term. Short of invading, there's nothing anyone can do to force them to stop. Biden's team is trying to position itself as a friend urging restraint from inside the tent.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 14, 2023 at 10:41 UTC

2/ Biden's thinking is basically that Israel (and specifically Bibi) feels besieged, and that public condemnations from the outside are not going to sway them. Biden also doesn't think threats of withdrawing US aid or imposing sanctions would work, or are feasible domestically.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 14, 2023 at 10:40 UTC

1/ The Biden administration diplomatic strategy around Gaza at the moment (which I'm explaining, not defending) is to try to retain access and influence with Israel in private by being fully supportive in public.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @dmitryopines.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 12, 2023 at 14:05 UTC

I'm not getting over it without an e-bike, let me tell you.

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