ABigGuy4U
4mo ago
Also Ukraine just costs a lot more. America has sent more aid to Ukraine in 2 years than it has sent to Israel in the last 30. Ukraine has gotten as much aid in 2 years as Afghanistan got in two decades. And that’s just from the United States, not counting what Ukraine is getting from Europe.
ABigGuy4U
4mo ago
Belgian politicians and social elites were raping and murdering girls for fun. Then they openly murdered dozens of police officers and judges to cover it up. They basically got away with it. And it was all very overt, much more overt than anything to do with the American pizza-gate.
ABigGuy4U
4mo ago
It was clear at that point on the strength of the reporting and with the number of victims that had come forward that he wasn’t getting out of jail alive even if he lived a long life.
The guy who ratted out John Gotti received a suspended sentence and probation for nineteen murders, including the murder of a police officer. I’m pretty sure a pimp could get a suspended sentence for ratting out a massive conspiracy to blackmail half the United States government.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
It won’t end war because the omniscient Chinese AI will be able to omnisciently bullshit the omniscient American AI to the point that there is uncertainty again.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
The assassination of Caesar was not supported by the majority of Romans. (Citation Needed)
How delightfully pissy of the Wikipedia editors
It is a circular issue. But the ceding of America’s public spaces to the Visigoth marauders is something no municipal administration will ever, ever fix. So when sensible Americans hear “we should abolish cars for walkable cities and public transportation” they correctly hear “please step inside the rape tube”
It’s more the association. In the late 2000s, unnaturally colored hair dye and outré haircuts tended to be associated with the Alt and Scene aesthetic movements. Most of the girls who had that style back then tended to be stylish and attractive. Then in the early 2010s, partially because of the Scott Pilgrim movie, those kinds of hairstyles got very very popular. Odd cuts, side shaves, pink and blue hair dye was everywhere. Many women pulled it off well but a lot didn’t. As the 2010s wore on (and the culture war started to heat up) it gradually began to acquire negative associations. This is when the stereotype of the “300 lb blue-haired social justice warrior with BPD” started to develop (I don’t like to make fun of anyone’s appearances, but that was the stereotype). As time went on, and the millennial demographic aged, but still maintained a lot of those haircuts, it morphed into the “HR political commissar who is about to fire you” stereotype haircut. That’s why you see a lot of posters on here calling it “danger warning hair” or saying it’s very unattractive to heterosexual men. So when people today look back at Scott Pilgrim and see Ramona with that haircut, they get the wrong cultural signal from it. It’s supposed to signal that Ramona is unusually cool, sexy and a bit dangerous. But today a lot of people see it and just think it looks kind of cringe and lame and wonder why Scott didn’t see the obvious warning signs.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
Regarding your last paragraph, I don’t think that’s a meaningful anthropological distinction. I’m sure there would be plenty of plowing in any truly hoe-based society.
That’s just because you can picture social ostracization better, because it’s something we all risk every day. It’s more real to you. You’ve (hopefully) never had someone sit you down and put a briefcase full of money on one side of the table, and a list of the names and addresses of your entire family on the other side. Years of field data in places like Mexico show that such techniques can compel an otherwise good person to keep quiet about, or even participate in, just about anything.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
is her electric pink buzz-cut hair - this is not something that is attractive to most hetrosexual men
It isn’t that attractive today because it has culturally barber-polled down to having lots of low status associations. Back when the comic was made, having electric pink hair meant you were a cool/hot alt-girl.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
In particular, I used to have the naive anti-conspiracy view that it's almost impossible to keep an important one going due to a single defection blowing everything up, even if smaller and/or more specific ones may happen.
And that was all done with just some light media slander and unspecified negative future career outcomes. Imagine what they can keep secret if the potential leakers all know that they could end up in prison for 40 years or mysteriously shot dead in their own driveway....
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
@Crowstep @07mk @DradisPing @sodiummuffin @AlexanderTurok
Exactly the kind of ahistorical revisionist cope brigade I would expect from the [[[Insidious Hibernian]]]. Whisky soaked, rosary-clutching, practically simian Irish fingers typed these posts. Back to the Emerald Isle with ye all!
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
Today, they're 44% of the population and declining fast.
America will always be a white country, because the definition of “white” is constantly being adjusted and every new ethnic group that comes into the country ends up eventually becoming white. The Irish and the Lithuanians and the Jews were definitely not white when they first got off the boats. In 20 years Latinos will be considered white, and another 20 years after that so will Indians.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
Yes, the United States is down to about 4000 warheads in active service compared to about 30,000 during the Cold War
Russia is only decreasing theirs because their Cold War stockpiles were insanely large, something like 45,000 warheads. They still have 7000 in active service or available to be put into active service, giving them the largest stockpile on the planet. Russia has spent trillions of dollars in the last couple of decades modernizing their delivery systems, which I think is what @Botond173 is referring to. China has never actually had that many nuclear warheads, and they are working on increasing their stockpiles to give them more strategic flexibility.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
William Gibson seems like an obvious choice. He was writing stories about the internet before the internet even existed. The Burning Chrome anthology and the Sprawl trilogy would be your best bet for those.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
It’s like the Y2K bug, there will forever be a controversy over whether the threat was overstated or if it was real and just avoided through the hard work of many. That said, I think it’s still a serious issue given that more and more rogue states are acquiring nuclear weapons and more states that have them are approaching political instability.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
Also both Russia and Germany had recently (in the last few years before the conflict) been in unfortunate situations that made them look like they had sold out their Slavic and Austrio-Hungarian allies, respectively. So when 1914 came around both had to act a lot tougher to compensate for their recent failures, leading to Russia’s maximalist demands and Germany’s “blank check” to Austria-Hungary.
ABigGuy4U
5mo ago
Nuclear weapons would be extremely useful on the battlefield. The only reason they aren’t used is because of the taboo, the threat of escalation, and squeamishness over civilian casualties. If nuclear weapons had been used in Korea, Vietnam or the present Ukraine conflict, those wars would have lasted between a day and three weeks.
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