The Atlas Asylum of absurd/ignorant posts IX

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wait, is it anti-Semitic to want people to convert to your religion?

Yes.

Interesting definition of anti-Semitism here.

Wanting anyone to convert to your religion is sociopathic.

Directly in the thread and all that.

Conversion efforts are abusive to congregants. By sending their followers out to "spread the good word," religions do not expect to win any new adherents. They assume (correctly) that the outside world will be hostile to their attempts, and that normal people will balk at them and be rude to their members. Then, when the congregants return to the security of the cult, they feel welcomed and at home again. The familiarity of the group calms their anxiety, and they are gradually taught to hate and fear those outside of the cult through conditional exposure. The goal is not to convince anyone to join the faith; that's just icing on the cake. On the contrary, their intention is to solidify their flock's dependence upon the cult by making them feel isolated, persecuted, and victimized. It's an insidiously genius method.

good lord, that one's bad.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yes, by someone who’s actually a Democrat.

Sinema is a Democrat. Sorry that reality doesn't care for your idiotic litmus tests!

Nah, emphatically voting against a minimum wage increase after campaigning on the idea that you grew up poor and needed government assistance to survive is a level of out-of-touchness that is reserved typically for Republicans. Not to mention the filibuster thing and voting with Trump over 50% of the time during her time in Congress. She may have been a Democratic 20-30 years ago, but not anymore. But 20-30 years ago, she was actually progressive. Funny how things change.

context: justifying calling Sinema a "Republican".

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What exactly is going on here?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I believe Meclazine is Australian and making a joke about Australians.

Pretty clearly. It's as clear as light and day.
Even if he wasn't joking though, I would strongly, strongly disagree with the idea that drug abuse is something negatively impacting only the user, but debating that is not something for which this thread is the right venue.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Islamophobia is not an especially "common" prejudice in France.
If upwards of 80 percent of French people would accept a Muslim neighbor, then France is probably not an especially intolerant society towards Islam in a European context.
My theory is that this is a common myth that is fed by the preponderance of Islamophobic sentiments in the chattering class due to apathy from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. French Muslims are quite apathetic towards this sort of stuff, which causes an imbalance which forces the political conversation dramatically in favor of the likes of Zemmour because there is no real counterweight. The marginal voter in France is probably decidedly more Islamophobic than the average Frenchman overall as well, but I don't feel like I can say there's real proof of that, it's more an educated guess.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Whatever. I knew you'd not like my views on this.
Have a nice day good Sir.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh look, the drive-by hater once again found a place for himself in my alerts. And it's for something I'm not 100% sure of defending anymore.
I needed a laugh. You'd find it hard to find a heart colder.
Guess he was salty.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh look, the drive-by hater once again found a place for himself in my alerts. And it's for something I'm not 100% sure of defending anymore.
I needed a laugh. You'd find it hard to find a heart colder.
Guess he was salty.

 To whom are you referring please?

Sol.
We have a strong mutual dislike. I just don't advertise it because I try to avoid insulting him. He makes it hard sometimes.
P.S. His obsession with me comes off as quite pathetic. A shame, because I like his postings.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh look, the drive-by hater once again found a place for himself in my alerts. And it's for something I'm not 100% sure of defending anymore.
I needed a laugh. You'd find it hard to find a heart colder.
Guess he was salty.

 To whom are you referring please?

Sol.
We have a strong mutual dislike. I just don't advertise it because I try to avoid insulting him. He makes it hard sometimes.
P.S. His obsession with me comes off as quite pathetic. A shame, because I like his postings.

 In fairness, that was a really s***** post of yours. Frankly you're entire both sidesing this invasion been quite Indefensible.

I don't particularly care too much he highlighted that post. No, it was the fact *he* was the one who did it. *He* is obsessed with me, and me personally, and he has done this time and time again, trying to cast me in the worst light possible. A sad, strange little man indeed.
When he tries to drag things off topic, I merely click the report button and let the mod team handle it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No one is "obsessed" with you. You are currently making 50 posts a day, mostly meandering lectures both-sidesing a conflict that no one apart from you has any interest in both-sidesing. If you don't want to face pushback for that, stop posting.

Sol has engaged in personal attacks against me and some of his posts have been deleted by the mods. There are numerous occasions in which this has happened in fact.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No one is "obsessed" with you. You are currently making 50 posts a day, mostly meandering lectures both-sidesing a conflict that no one apart from you has any interest in both-sidesing. If you don't want to face pushback for that, stop posting.

Sol has engaged in personal attacks against me and some of his posts have been deleted by the mods. There are numerous occasions in which this has happened in fact.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Sol got tired of your bit before the rest of us did, but there's a lot more people than just Sol who're over it now.

You can just ask YE if any of Sol's posts have been deleted.
In any case, I don't need your approval to post, the Russian/Ukrainian megathread is welcome to people of varying opinions no matter how you might dislike that, and you are being as ludicrously hostile as I've ever seen.
Whatever. Have a nice day, no matter how much the more annoyed part of my mind wishes otherwise.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No one is "obsessed" with you. You are currently making 50 posts a day, mostly meandering lectures both-sidesing a conflict that no one apart from you has any interest in both-sidesing. If you don't want to face pushback for that, stop posting.

Sol has engaged in personal attacks against me and some of his posts have been deleted by the mods. There are numerous occasions in which this has happened in fact.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Sol got tired of your bit before the rest of us did, but there's a lot more people than just Sol who're over it now.

You can just ask YE if any of Sol's posts have been deleted.
In any case, I don't need your approval to post, the Russian/Ukrainian megathread is welcome to people of varying opinions no matter how you might dislike that, and you are being as ludicrously hostile as I've ever seen.
Whatever. Have a nice day, no matter how much the more annoyed part of my mind wishes otherwise.

You really aren't making yourself look better.

I know, you don't generally look good after throwing mud, justified or not.
Just wanted to call out a problem poster for how pathetic they've been and how cold they are. Also, much credit to the mod team for putting Sol in his place. Much deserved.
It is fact Sol has brought up off-topic things, engaged in personal attacks, and seen his posts deleted, all in connection to what at least is a personal vendetta against me personally.
I'm not unhappy with the status quo in this at all.
That is all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No one is "obsessed" with you. You are currently making 50 posts a day, mostly meandering lectures both-sidesing a conflict that no one apart from you has any interest in both-sidesing. If you don't want to face pushback for that, stop posting.

Sol has engaged in personal attacks against me and some of his posts have been deleted by the mods. There are numerous occasions in which this has happened in fact.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Sol got tired of your bit before the rest of us did, but there's a lot more people than just Sol who're over it now.

You can just ask YE if any of Sol's posts have been deleted.
In any case, I don't need your approval to post, the Russian/Ukrainian megathread is welcome to people of varying opinions no matter how you might dislike that, and you are being as ludicrously hostile as I've ever seen.
Whatever. Have a nice day, no matter how much the more annoyed part of my mind wishes otherwise.

You really aren't making yourself look better.

I know, you don't generally look good after throwing mud, justified or not.
Just wanted to call out a problem poster for how pathetic they've been and how cold they are. Also, much credit to the mod team for putting Sol in his place. Much deserved.
It is fact Sol has brought up off-topic things, engaged in personal attacks, and seen his posts deleted, all in connection to what at least is a personal vendetta against me personally.
I'm not unhappy with the status quo in this at all.
That is all.

Didn't really want to get involved with this, but to my knowledge all of these posts were ones I've deleted myself. I sometimes get very angry on the Internet, including over your posts on occasion, and I often will go back and delete ones I wrote where I felt like I went over the top. I've done this on covid-related threads as well. The only moderated post I have is one where I called Hifly a bigot back in like 2014.

In any case I have no obsession with you, and I do not want to "throw you into the volcano." You have a habit of making thoughtless and sometimes offensive posts and I think we share several interests, so I encounter them with an extremely high frequency. My response to them I think is pretty typical of the treatment of bad posts on this forum--compucomp for example has been getting an even more kneejerk response to his unfortunate takes. I don't hate you but I do wish you were more thoughtful.

If all this is true, then I'm quite shocked at how (partial) the information I had was.
I'd like to apologize for the (likely) fact that, though I was acting on (close to) the best of information, that information was, for sure, at least somewhat wrong.
I can attest to the fact we share several interests.
I would also like to express the sentiment that your view of me is, at best, very much outdated and rooted in whatever your (at least former) self's perceptions of past events was.
We probably have been misjudging each other. I'm very open to reappraising you further as a character (already have to some extent because of this one post) and I only hope you can do the same.
But that's a matter for another thread and/or PMs.
If you want to talk to me, my PMs are always open.
P.S. I know I use this phrase a lot, but have a nice day. Please be/remain intellectually curious.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In response to a post saying that Britain’s government was never in serious threat during WW2:

Pseudohistorical nonsense. An invasion was planned in great and exhaustive detail and would have occurred had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat. Why don't you f**ck off and read some actual history for a change?

The idea that Operation Sea Lion had a >0% chance of succeeding is probably the dumbest historical take I’ve ever seen on this whole site, and certainly the dumbest about WW2.

Have to agree here.
I'm shocked at how out of depth Al is on this specific facet, in an area he's rather knowledgeable on. And I'm saying this as someone who has learned more about Russian history because of him.
On AH.com, I learned that Sealion was a silly invasion that had no chance of succeeding. From people who knew what they were talking about. Every so often people would make threads asking "what if Nazis invaded Britain" and thinking it could happen, only to get schooled by people who knew better than them.
By no means am I putting any judgement on Al's overall postings, just looking at this in isolation. This little thing here is just utterly silly and is beneath his usual standards.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In response to a post saying that Britain’s government was never in serious threat during WW2:

Pseudohistorical nonsense. An invasion was planned in great and exhaustive detail and would have occurred had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat. Why don't you f**ck off and read some actual history for a change?

The idea that Operation Sea Lion had a >0% chance of succeeding is probably the dumbest historical take I’ve ever seen on this whole site, and certainly the dumbest about WW2.

Have to agree here.
I'm shocked at how out of depth Al is on this specific facet, in an area he's rather knowledgeable on. And I'm saying this as someone who has learned more about Russian history because of him.
On AH.com, I learned that Sealion was a silly invasion that had no chance of succeeding. From people who knew what they were talking about. Every so often people would make threads asking "what if Nazis invaded Britain" and thinking it could happen, only to get schooled by people who knew better than them.
By no means am I putting any judgement on Al's overall postings, just looking at this in isolation. This little thing here is just utterly silly and is beneath his usual standards.

I was going to dunk on TheReckoning for being an obvious ah.com poster, but this is just too good. If that "Thande" guy wasn't a prolific poster a decade ago, this wouldn't even be a thing.

There were (still are, most likely) many people who can just pick apart World War I/II timelines on the Post-1900 Board by aiming for a high realism standard. It can get quite technical. Details about ship gun length and rounds, where X commander was in Y time with Z number of troops, all sorts of little stuff. If you are inexperienced, it can feel tough.
"Bbbbbut the Nazis would have invaded Britain" sounds like pop history you'd find on History Channel.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In response to a post saying that Britain’s government was never in serious threat during WW2:

Pseudohistorical nonsense. An invasion was planned in great and exhaustive detail and would have occurred had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat. Why don't you f**ck off and read some actual history for a change?

The idea that Operation Sea Lion had a >0% chance of succeeding is probably the dumbest historical take I’ve ever seen on this whole site, and certainly the dumbest about WW2.

You claim that Britain was never under 'any real threat'. Irrespective of Sea Lion's odds of strategic success, this is bonkers.

I said that the government was never under any real threat. They never had to worry about the possibility of losing their power to the Nazis. I clarified that British citizens of course had to worry about bombing campaigns/rockets.

There are statements of yours I have disagreed with. But this is a case of people jumping on you for a basically correct statement.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

TheReckoning, you're blind or just a bad-faith poster. TimTurner, you're naive for not confirming TheReckoning's claim by clicking the OP & looking at the context of what was fully said (which TheReckoning conveniently chose to omit ITT), this:

And Britain’s government during WW2 was never under any real threat (the people are of course a different story) because an invasion/overthrow of them was logistically impossible, and everyone was aware of that. But that is of course a topic of another time.

Pseudohistorical nonsense. An invasion was planned in great and exhaustive detail and would have occurred had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat. Why don't you f**ck off and read some actual history for a change?

In light of the full context, the only absurdity posted in any of the last few quotes ITT is TheReckoning's misrepresentation of what it is that Al, y'know, actually even said to begin with. Literally all that he said is that Operation Sea Lion plans existed - which they did, or else we really wouldn't know about "Sea Lion," now would we? - & could've been successful "had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat," which is a pretty freakin' important qualifier there, given that it's literally called the Battle of Britain since, had the RAF lost it & allowed the Luftwaffe to gain air superiority over the Channel, the door would've then been open for Sea Lion to successfully be initiated, at which point, who knows, but Britain may very well have fallen, not least since a Nazi victory in the Battle of Britain, an attempted Sea Lion thereafter, & the resultant increased focus on the British Isles could very well have completely butterflied how Barbarossa ever occurs (if at all) & stretches the Nazis thin. I can't think of a legit WW2 historian who'd disagree with that analysis, & I say that because I literally just did my senior seminar on WW2 turning points, so TheReckoning really needs to open a history book or two.

I'm aware of the broader post. My comments pertain only to the Sea Lion part, which is only a portion. I do believe that  it did not have any real chance to succeed. And the implication that just because plans existed is a sign that it could very well had happened is dumb because militaries have plans for even the most implausible eventualities.

You could create a scenario in which Sea Lion has a decent chance of success, but it would need a POD (Point of Divergence) that goes back many, many years earlier. But that would also, very likely, butterfly away WW2 as we know it.

The possibility of unrest toppling the government is something I would not have considered and is the only real argument here. I admit it has some credence, and gives me some pause.
P.S. Al didn't say "could happen", which is wording I'd agree with. He said "would happen".
Could happen is even my kind of language! We don't know how the Nazis act if the Battle of Britain is a Nazi victory, so "could", being open about what directions things could go, makes a lot of sense.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In response to a post saying that Britain’s government was never in serious threat during WW2:

Pseudohistorical nonsense. An invasion was planned in great and exhaustive detail and would have occurred had the Battle of Britain not ended in decisive defeat. Why don't you f**ck off and read some actual history for a change?

The idea that Operation Sea Lion had a >0% chance of succeeding is probably the dumbest historical take I’ve ever seen on this whole site, and certainly the dumbest about WW2.

You claim that Britain was never under 'any real threat'. Irrespective of Sea Lion's odds of strategic success, this is bonkers.

I said that the government was never under any real threat. They never had to worry about the possibility of losing their power to the Nazis. I clarified that British citizens of course had to worry about bombing campaigns/rockets.

There are statements of yours I have disagreed with. But this is a case of people jumping on you for a basically correct statement.

I would be more sympathetic if it didn't happen in the context of TheReckoning giving pseudointellectual pontificating on Danish culture, a post which belongs in this thread and also betrays massive ignorance of geography and history.

That's understandable.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

P.S. Al didn't say "could happen", which is wording I'd agree with. He said "would happen".

We disagree about the earliest necessary PoD, then, because if we're operating on the basis of TTL suggested by Al in which the RAF go down to the Luftwaffe, then the initiation of Sea Lion thereafter triggers an invasion that would've definitionally threatened the British government insofar as any military invasion & attempted occupation of domestic soil does so, let alone one which would've seen the full arsenal of Nazi man- & war-power converging upon Britain. Sea Lion need not have ultimately been a successful venture insofar as occupying Britain was concerned for everything that Al said to nevertheless still be 100% true.

Well, an invasion might have been attempted, definitely, but it would largely fail for much the same reasons the Mongol invasion of Japan failed - defender advantage on an island, logistics, and all the other things that a foreign invader has to contend with. (All the more reason why D-Day emphasized taking the beaches so much, why Gallipoli focused on expanding beyond beaches, etc.) The people who do this sort of military planning generally understand basic principles of how you hold ground and all that stuff. Of course, the Nazis would also have done the same thing. But the Nazis would face an enemy that, just as the Japanese knew in 1274 and 1281, it's do or die. The British were just too attuned to this reality to actually be at serious risk from a Nazi invasion.

There's also the whole British maintain naval superiority thing as well...how are they suppose to land the troops?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[snip]

P.S. Al didn't say "could happen", which is wording I'd agree with. He said "would happen".
Could happen is even my kind of language! We don't know how the Nazis act if the Battle of Britain is a Nazi victory, so "could", being open about what directions things could go, makes a lot of sense.

We disagree about the earliest necessary PoD, then, because if we're operating on the basis of TTL suggested by Al in which the RAF go down to the Luftwaffe, then the initiation of Sea Lion thereafter - which, no, does seem a given - triggers an invasion that would've definitionally threatened the British government insofar as any military invasion & attempted occupation of domestic soil does so, let alone one which would've seen the full arsenal of Nazi man- & war-power converging upon Britain. Sea Lion need not have ultimately been a successful venture insofar as occupying Britain was concerned for everything that Al said to nevertheless still be 100% true.

Even if the RAF was utterly destroyed and the Luftwaffe had captured total, uncontested air superiority over the British Isles (which itself has a near-zero chance of happening), Sea Lion still couldn’t have succeeded because of supremacy of the RN over the Kreigsmarine- most important thing to have when invading an island is a stronger navy, which the Nazis didn’t have-not even close.

This I'm not so sure of.  What happens if we have total Luftwaffe superiority in the sky vs total RN supremacy on the water?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One might presume that a TL involving a victorious Nazi performance in the Battle of Britain is also one in which the German Navy wasn't in shambles after Norway, but granted, perhaps that ought not to be taken as a given. Nevertheless, paratroopers exist (see: Crete, after all) & Britain was vulnerable from multiple fronts, Scotland being just a sea away from Norway. I really don't think anybody is claiming that occupation would've ultimately been successful, but in a TL involving a better Nazi military, it really stretches the imagination for TheReckoning's claim that started all of this & infuriated Al - that the British government was never under any real threat  - to somehow still remain agreeable, especially when you consider a point of my last post: that Britain was definitionally at threat by virtue of just being engaged in the war. Seriously, Churchill didn't order the RAF to defend the skies of London just 'cause, & even as they did, 10 Downing Street was still a target that was threatened.

All in all, it would be a very high stakes, high-reward, high-risk, situation for both parties. If the Germans roll the dice and fail, it's pretty terrible for them on a number of fronts. The biggest issue with "better German military" is that countries have only finite resources they can spend on military things, and then you in turn have to decide to spend that in the army, air, sea, etc. And Germany in particular had to deal with the fact it got years upon years of having been demilitarized. Perhaps that is also a contributor to them using foreign things in the war.
A distinction needs to be made between a serious threat to the government's existence (which is how I interpreted TheReckoning's point) and a serious threat to the government's overall strategic interests.
Overall though, this is something of a mix-up with things lost in translation. The most we have to go by are two quotes from two posters who don't really get along, in a thread where  fleshing out precisely what one means could be somewhat difficult.
I actually considered setting up a thread in the History subforum to hear more from Al about this, but decided against it pretty quickly. I felt he wouldn't want to be bothered, though it would be nice to hear his perspective on this.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Some of y'all need to get off of AH.com.

FTFY

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Some of y'all need to get off of AH.com.

FTFY

??

I edited the title to jokingly call this the "AH.com Asylum" as opposed to "Atlas Asylum". As if this arguing about alternate history scenarios and all that, it was actually AH.com that we were posting on. I was piggybacking off (and contributing to) what you were posting, because I laughed at it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I don't know what this exchange is about, but I am absolutely cracking up over the authoritative citation of AlternateHistory.com's collective account of Operation Sealion as a "silly invasion." The final Python-esque touch would involve a 16-ton weight.

Do tell, precisely what do you find objectionable about it, and are there informed arguments against it? Because the more I learn about military history and all that stuff, it only looks more proven, not less.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As interesting as the Sealion discussion is, it's taken on a life of its own and would be better served in a separate thread.

I'll make such a thread if I get notification from at least two people involved in this discussion through PM that they desire such a thread being made. I will then notify them by PM of the link to it.
That is all for now.