It's scarier that this is clearly a testing ground. Gaza is too small for anything real, it doesn't really incur expenses, and it doesn't really provide profits when cleansed of people.

Also since Britain is in the title - I'd reminisce on the old picture of Russian Imperial, German Imperial, Soviet and partially even Nazi propagandist view of the world, where Britain was the center of evil aiming for, well, something like this.

It seems telling that USA, Israel, and the Commonwealth (for all military and totalitarian purposes Britain and its former dominions are still one thing) are in this together and have dropped any pretense of internationalism and rules on the world stage.

So what I think - propaganda, that's in its name, is used to propagate information. That information is augmented and simplified by those providing it, but it wouldn't have any meaning if it had zero correlation with the real world, and providing correct information is beneficial long-term for any elite, except few of them can afford to disregard short-term effects.

Perhaps that picture had something in it, or again has something in it.

See, these countries have notably interconnected and very developed intelligence services, world military logistics, propaganda means above anything openly totalitarian countries could ever hope. Totalitarian counties close up and institute censorship because you can paint a pond red, or a small river, but you can't paint the world ocean red. USA+Israel+Commonwealth can and do paint the world ocean red ; perhaps the color is paler around its remote parts.

And now they are developing and testing, on the scale of a small country, weapons that, combined with these means, can indicate that we know who will deliberately start WWIII with the goal of world domination, except it might not last long enough to be called a war.

I've also heard that British royalty still consists of types who classify people and nations by color, and those more colored in their perception have no rights at all.

And the whole constitutional monarchy and separation of dominions and independence of their puppet organizations in other (sometimes very totalitarian, I know) countries - these things can maintain structure without hard joints.

Say, when some opposition party in Georgia is technically its own thing, but receives grants, the more the better it works, that's not having a hard joint yet having a hierarchy. And, say, the glory of Saakashvili's war on corruption shouldn't be overestimated, he mostly did it through abuse. When in Armenia in the 90s Vano Siradeghyan was the internal affairs minister, its crime and corruption problems were also much less than before and after, because police would simply murder mob bosses (except for those in the government, of course). I don't know anything about Vano being pro-western or receiving grants or aiming for political power, but he used absolutely the same means the wonderful reformer Saakashvili did. OK, these are local examples.

The point is - the modern state of existence of the British Empire (in my humble opinion US has slowly receded to being part of that for many years) doesn't favor hard joints. One should look not only at grant eater groups in various countries, one should also look at many small independent states, like Arab monarchies or Baltic republics, whose foreign affairs positions have little consistency and often seem as if they were saying what the US or Britain don't want to say themselves yet.

So - getting back to weapons, we might be living in an interbellum, not for world wars, but for imperialist and anti-imperialist wars. WWI and WWII can be united into one thing in some sense, in WWI empires crumbled and socialist movements raised their heads. In WWII socialists survived and even reinforced some of their positions, but empires managed to play on both sides, and speaking about Nazis, they were very bad people, but their plans for future weren't compatible with the old concept of empires. So in some sense Nazis and USSR got played to fight each other where they shouldn't have.

So - Star Wars is often blamed for touching politics where, in the opinion of those talking, it's superficial in that. I don't think Star Wars is superficial in that, I think its EU's portrayal of that inhabited galaxy and its politics is pretty similar to our real world, just more directly exposed and has a far smaller difficulty level for the good guys. Both can be considered conventions of art.

I think we'll see the empire where it naturally won't make any sense to call it anything more specific.

I’ve also heard that British royalty still consists of types who classify people and nations by color, and those more colored in their perception have no rights at all.

The thing about this, is that it doesn't matter if it's happening in Brittain or the U.S. or Israel. It's a form of social control for elites who view the world as a social hierarchy. There are no rules for them, but they need the masses to believe there are.

They're at the top. God or nature chose for them to rule, and at the end of the day, nobody has any rights other than their right to rule over others. It just "is what it is." They love social darwinism as long as they control the game, but they also know the reality is that if the masses were to ever unite and rise up against them, they would very quickly lose their spot at the top of the hierarchy.

Creating a value system on something arbitrary like skin color is one of the easiest ways to divide and conquer. Control of the masses by tricking some of them into believing they share something inherent with those who actually dominate all of them. Skin color, nationality, religion, or political beliefs as a measure of the value of human life, lulls the subordinates into a false sense of safety by default. They can be made fully aware of atrocities happening on the other side of the world, or even next door to them, but believe their belonging to the perceived in-group means it won't happen to them.

When one out-group is eliminated, a new arbitrary out-group will be created to divide and conquer those who remain and destroy any who oppose. It's happening in the U.S. right now.

We allowed immigrants to be rounded up like animals. We rationalized children screaming and crying in fear as their families were torn apart. They weren't here "legally" so they didn't have the same legal rights as everyone else. And since we allowed a group of humans to be considered "illegal," a loss of human dignity is just accepted as the inevitable consequence of their actions. As if they somehow deserved this.

Then when we learned there were people who were here legally, but also being rounded up illegally in the rush to get all the "illegals" off the street, we accepted that it was simply a mistake, but a consequence of so many illegals with similar ethnicities overwhelming the system. A fault of the group, not a fault of the system. Nothing we needed to worry about, things would get sorted out, eventually. The system is never held to account.

Last week an entire apartment building was raided in Chicago when government agents dropped from a helicopter to a rooftop to break in. Most residents woke up to their doors kicked in around 1 am. Adults were handcuffed. Children were zip tied together and taken from their families screaming and crying. And in all the chaos and confusion, their American neighbors were also rounded up, handcuffed for hours, and denied due process. When they were finally released, they returned to find many of their friends and neighbors missing (and still unaccounted for), and many of their homes raided of valuables.

Surely this will be the line for America, right? We can all see this has nothing to do with immigration and "legal" status, right? The system is commiting the crime. They system is breaking all the rules it claims to enforce.

Or, will we all just accept that because it happened to mainly black and brown American citizens in an inner city apartment building, it was simply a mistake due to similar ethnicities overwhelming the system? It's not something you need to worry about if you're not one of them. You're safe. Surely things will get sorted out, eventually.

President Trump released a new memo a few weeks ago that very few have paid much attention to. The vague language is phrased as targeting associates and funders of radical leftist groups like "Antifa," but it's vagueness essentially equates any act of political opposition with an act of domestic terrorism.

Divide and conquer.

Divide and conquer.

I mean, yes, that's what gradual escalation doctrine means. Unfortunately that system is comprehensive, it works from the ground up this way, and any system modeled after it (which after the Cold War became most of the world) reinforces it and impedes the cure to it.

The cure would be not only many leftist ideologies, but also, for example, things like ancaps and sovcits. The problem is that all of these are so negatively perceived that even denying them voice is not seen as a problem for many people.

People think it's normal, this gradual process. That it is democracy, waiting for your enemy to do vile shit like this and then argue it "by the law", and never God forbid start first.

While the solution would be preventive rebellion, and none of popular philosophy substantiates that. Everyone thinks that's something only terrorists, bad-bad fascists and bad-bad bolsheviks do. With plenty of history to support that viewpoint, of course, except millions of dead under colonial rule in Africa and from British blockades even in the two world wars were killed by neither bolsheviks nor fascists.

Getting back to the system, I mean culture of social interactions by that, which is beneficial for them in most of the world. As a reaction to other transgressions, maybe, but that doesn't change the fact.

stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given they are internet-enabled and more attractive for those trying to bypass censorship

I'm guessing buyers specifically want non-Chinese devices, and stealing from individuals is easier than from a factory.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they had guards armed with SMGs and full body armour guarding the shipments as they leave the factory.

Since Apple shrunk the packaging they could probably fit a million iPhones in one shipping container. Think how much that’d be worth!