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3 yr. ago

  • Again, unconditional surrender by the military, which was no longer willing to defend its country, is not diplomacy. It is a military act. Unconditional surrender is the result of failed diplomacy, it is failure to negotiate an end to a conflict. It's not an "agreement," it is a one-sided act of capitulation.

    This isn't nitpicking, you're making a huge reach to call it diplomacy. If you can show me any published book, dictionary or document that says that unconditional surrender is an act of diplomacy, I'll stand corrected. But I'm pretty sure you'll have a very hard time finding such a thing.

    Diplomacy is by definition the management of relations between countries, by representatives of the countries, not between a country and another country's military. Germany was not under military rule, so the military wasn't making a decision for the country, and it was not a diplomatic act.

    I mean, it's in the first sentence of what you posted [emphasis mine]

    The German Instrument of Surrender[a] was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe.

    The signatories on the German side were

    • Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg
    • Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
    • General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff

    Notice they're all military, not government representatives. These signatories represent the German High Command (military), not Germany itself, it says so on the first line of the terms.

    Now, read the full instruments of surrender here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Definitive_German_Instrument_of_Surrender_(8_May_1945)

    The terms are all about orders to the military and how they will perform the act of surrendering. It is a purely military document. There's nothing about the country, nothing about the government, nothing diplomatic about it. There is nothing in the terms that say what the Allies will do.

    You don't have to be a politician to do diplomatic actions for your state.

    As I hope you can see now, they weren't performing actions on behalf of the state. They were performing on behalf of the military, and that's a huge difference.

    Imagine if the US military signed terms of surrender, or even gave away equipment to another country, on its own, without Congress or the President issuing an order. That wouldn't be considered diplomacy, it would be a military act, and if you can't see the difference, then I guess we're done here.

    And ad hominem attacks are used to distract from the weakness of your own argument, which is what you continue to do.

  • Okay check yourself with ad hominem attacks, asshole.

    Germany's surrender was a military act, not a diplomatic one. It was signed by generals, not diplomats or politicians. Germany's surrender was not a negotiated agreement as they were denied any legitimacy to negotiate.

  • One major agreement of an unconditional surrender is that the troops that disarm won't be slaughtered by the other side when they do.

    Holy nitpick Batman. Or strawman? The terms of surrender were unconditional. That their troops wouldn't be slaughtered is implicit and was protected under international law. That's not a negotiation.

  • Here, I made a screenshot so someone else can repost it.

  • What the crew thinks I do:

  • Whoosh?

  • Well shit, now I understand the picture!

  • They only use Kelvin

  • Yes

  • How could she possibly know that? The podcast she listened to said raw milk is better for you.

  • Good thing he didn't actually say it would be the next Windows doing any of those things. He didn't even say it would be the OS:

    "I think we will see computing become more ambient, more pervasive, continue to span form factors, and certainly become more multi-modal in the arc of time ... I think experience diversity is the next space where we will continue to see voice becoming more important. Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward."

    The important and scarier part is actually the last sentence, not anything from the article title.

  • That's why I said "that book", not "any book".

  • a) Anywhere you buy that book from that isn't using DRM, isn't paying the author.

    b) If they're using DRM you'll have to use some sort of proprietary software to use the book (i.e. not a straight PDF you can open with any PDF reader)

    c) Owning the physical copy doesn't give you any more right to scan the book than it does downloading it DRM-free or bypassing DRM. Depends on the country, but making your own copy is a grey area. (so if you're going to scan it or crack it, just download it from the internet archive or something - otherwise you're just wasting time, money, and resources and contributing unnecessarily to the heat death of the planet/universe.)

    VitalSource provides lifetime digital licenses but requires their proprietary software (Bookshelf) which is available on a lot of different devices. They work with publishers to pay royalties which should go to authors. I think they have a return policy if you try it out and it isn't working for you. (I've never used it myself)

    It's also on Kindle 🤮 and Kobo and a bunch of other places. The publisher probably provides links to sites where you can get it.

    You can also check your library for a digital copy and take it out whenever you want to search it, I suppose.

  • PS/2 isn't vintage. I'm still using an adapter to connect my Microsoft Natural keyboard through USB.

    Oh, wait...

  • Mulva?

  • I think you mean "sinusoidal".

  • I think they'll get to him soon. He's holding out for a big paycheck.