DBDr
1yr ago
"This is clearly a lie, as we can see from his previous behavior, supporters, and party platform" followed by a bunch of clipchimping and scary music.
Anybody who is on the prochoice side is incredibly ready to believe that republicans want a federal ban, because lots of them do and say so.
Doesn't even matter if it's not true; it's republican Death Panels style of thing.
DBDr
7mo ago
Palestine wonks I know say that kinkos printouts of orders are very unusual; that hamas usually has more informal and deniable chains of command in these situations eg, never never never commit anything to ink or bits that might make them look bad if it comes out. They might have messages saying "Break through at such and such" and then a dude would drop by tell you face to face the level of war crimes they expect out of you.
Native speakers I know say that could either be a machine translated text of some language with weird clauses (not english); or it could just be written awkwardly as all such documents are.
DBDr
9mo ago
Nor is it fraud to sign a piece of paper saying you believe.
It literally is fraud to do that though, is the thing. That's what fraud is.
DBDr
9mo ago
I know this isn't helpful, but my flinch reaction to dudes who have masculinity problems is to scoff and feel contempt.
Like, what's so fucking hard about it? And then I remember normal mind bias and tell myself that what I just said is "Listen, picking up heavy stuff is easy! Just lift more than you can lift!"
I will say that building your masculinity on the attention of a particular woman or women in general is cuck behavior, and needs to be discouraged wherever possible. Even the MGTOW dudes still construct their whole identity around women, you gotta stop that shit.
But that runs into "Just stop feeling that way! Lift more than you can lift!" again.
DBDr
6mo ago
Also, not to put too fine a point on it: Israel is huhWight.
Even if most Israelis aren't white racially, it is a white post colonial European state culturally. Ingroup loyalty puts it's finger on the balance, so if you aren't sure what's going on/ don't care that much, the default position is to support team most-like-you.
's why absent any knowledge about the region, most Americans and Europeans feel better about Singapore than eg New Guinee: Even if Singapore isn't western, it's close enough for horseshoes and international diplomacy.
DBDr
6mo ago
As another civil war nerd; how do you know how haven't already been gaslit? There was a strong, well funded revisionist and revanchist effort to deny the historical reality of the south, the civil war, and the way the war was fought for several decades up until at least the 1960's.
How do you know the sources you read weren't based Rutherford's feelings about it rather than the historical reality?
DBDr
10mo ago
At least there exists good rap; good rap is theoretical possible. The design specifications of rap allow for good.
The essential element of stadium country is that it is vapid garbage for people that hate music. It is mid 2000's R&B level worthless trash.
Here are the things that are good about pop country: You can dance to it.
It's the Mcdonald's of music. Bland, overproduced, overpriced, and super salty all the time.
Wait, hold on, I have more bitching in me! And it's deffo not all sour grapes that my guys never break into the mainstream!
DBDr
10mo ago
I'm not, but the basics:
We still build airliners commercially, so we can build fighters.
We still build cars commercially, so we can build tanks.
We still build (tech bullshit) commercially so we can build systems, radars, etc.
We don't build ships commercially, so whenever we try to build ships that aren't super special one offs (nuclear subs, nuclear aircraft carriers, etc.) that are already inherently expensive disasters and you just have to accept it, It's an expensive disaster. Eg, Zumwalt et all.
US military industrial capacity hasn't actually meaningfully declined in most ways. We still can produce enough to arm ourselves and fill orders from foreign buyers and we are world leaders in quantity production of planes that don't suck, excepting ships where we can only build space age nuclear powered wunderwaffe or fucking disasterpiece boondoggles.
That said, you don't know how good the foundation is until the earth starts shaking. Lots of (wrong) people said that Russia had gotten some of it's soviet mojo back ala-making cool shit, which did not actually happen when they got put to the test.
Defense economics info is dry as hell to read; but there are some good youtube channels on it (Perun, for example).
DBDr
5mo ago
I think you believe this because of the people around you and the bubble you are in; but it just isn't true. Historically when money is tight, SJW's make even faster, harder, more permanent progress. Prosperity produces empty gestures because everybody can get by well enough, hardship produces actual clicks of the ratchet because people have enough potential energy to be actualized into political will.
But even if that doesn't happen, nothing ever happens for you. Even if nobody believes in DEI (which they don't because it's dumb); the gesture is all that is required. If DEI goes away, it will be replaced with something you hate equally because, again, you can't win permanent victories, just like you can't make water flow up hill.
You can expend cultural capital; you can burn that shit as fuel and pump that shit back up; but eventually water finds it's way to the sea.
Because we live under capitalist realism, because even with two (do I hear three!) wars going on right now, History has Ended. Nothing Ever Happens. If you want to actually see the changes you desire in your heart, you are going to need to take a risk; to smash the system just like I will to see the economic changes I want to see.
DBDr
6mo ago
The political goal of the war isn't to destroy hammas, it's to make effective Palestinian internal governance impossible. Moving them to the west bank defeats this purpose; in an ideal scenario for Israel all Palestinians just fuck off to egypt or lebanon or syria and stop being a hassle.
DBDr
9mo ago
I'm taking my third month long vacation in the past 12 months; given that we are probably seeing the very end of the covid price extravaganza that let me go to japan and london from Socal for a couple hundred bucks; this time filling out my map of Europe with Romania, Bulgaria, and greece (which I somehow managed to avoid up until now.) If I don't go now, I'm probably gonna not go for a long ass time; prices look like they are bouncing wayyyy back up.
I'm really gonna miss covid; that whole situation was so fucking convenient to me. Cheap plane tickets, cheap lodgings, cheap car rentals, incredibly cheap train tickets (including that summer ticket in Germany that was all local and national and some international rail with unlimited rides for like, 12 dollars or something. Shit was wild; I hope they do that again.), and short lines.
I guess It has to end eventually though, or all the places I like will go bust. This is me bidding a fond Farwell to the Coronavirus era, I really hope the people who want me to eat the bugs and live in the pod don't also make me go back to the fucking office.
DBDr
9mo ago
Good post, I like the straight Japan perspective.
+1 Tsushima provided false weight to japan (and everyone else kinda) re. decisive battle doctrine.
Some other things weighing in on decisions (IMO): the perpetual and inevitable rise of gearfuckery. Our planes are so pretty, they fly so high and fast, their cannons are so BIG and STRONG and ERRECT! Our ships sail so well, are so beautiful, surely nothing could oppose them!
Helped along by the fact that they were early adopters and actually did lead the world for quite a while in naval aviation (and military aviation in general, arguably). Just not by as much or for as long as they may have thought.
DBDr
9mo ago
Part of the process of negotiating resource allocation via negotiation within a framework of laws, traditions, and norms.
Why, what do you think it is?
DBDr
1yr ago
This isn't a sneer or anything, but before I try to engage with this I want to know if this is a truly held thought or a parody of some of the other contrarian takedowns that get posted on here.
DBDr
1yr ago
This is one of those mexican standoff tragedy of the commons situations for me.
EG, I am strongly for NIMBY policies on homelessness until I am assured that YIMBY policies will be adopted state/nation wide.
Exemplified by the problems certain areas are having now: Some section of the nation are too cowardly to imprison or execute the homeless but poor enough in spirit to harass indigents until they fuck off somewhere else; all the way down the chain until they reach somewhere that has principles instead of standards which instantly becomes fucking awful.
If we could coordinate such that everywhere adopted YIMBY polices at once, it would be pretty much fine. Since we can't, I'm going to vote to give the brain fried PTSD'd out veteran a buss ticket back to el paso and they can go to hell.
DBDr
1yr ago
I just took another batch of IQ tests for some poor suffering undergrads and felt that they were hilariously swingy.
I've always scored around 130; but one or two questions can drop your right out of/into that bracket , and the pattern recognition questions are easy to get wrong through test format. Eg, in this test there was a sequence of numbers displayed such that the question number looked like it was part of the sequence. I only noticed because it made the sequence all fucky.
This ontop of the other (crapyer) test where you basically play word association half the time, the whole enterprise of IQ testing fills me with doubt. I have no doubt I am "intelligent" enough to be somewhere near where I test on the bell curve, but 97th percentile feels way too high to me. I feel like a better test would be to present my with a piece of broken machinery I've never seen before and timing me while I try to fix it, only that's kinda hard to feed into numpy for pretty graphs.
Are the IQ tests used for actual funded trials different than what is used by starving students, are all of them shakey as hell buzzfeed affairs, or am I just biased against them for some reason?
DBDr
6mo ago
I've been drunk twice in my life; both times from a cooking or workplace accident leading to me getting a face full of ethanol vapor and I still have at least 60-70 bottles collected.
You don't gotta be alchy to enjoy a fine booze; and not being a drunk means I can make my really good bottles last for months or years.
My lime tree is going nuts right now, so I've been drinking down my worst bottles of tequila, mezcal and rum in mixed drinks. Interestingly, a Mezcal margarita with with no triple sec, a small amount of agave syrup and hella orange bitters actually LOVES my most paint thinner and burning glove flavored mezcal.
Bad rum on the other hand is basically useless; it's bad because it tastes like weak fake caramel and suger instead of a tire fire; so there's not alot there to play with.
DBDr
6mo ago
To extend and confirm your logic, this is why all papists should be tied into a sack with a rock, a snake, and a badger and thrown into the river outside town, what with the prevalence of pedophiliacs in the church springing from it's policies and traditions.
DBDr
1yr ago
Because they (meaning the white middleclass subset you refer to and also myself) don't actually hate America, they hate the red tribe.
When they criticize America, they are implicitly only criticizing the Red parts of the present and the past. Eg, the native genocide, slavery, apartheid, social conservatism, republicans even existing at all, etc and so forth.
Having filled the pages of my passport, I actually think that America is the strongest, most important and most vibrant nation in the world, and so do american leftists only implicitly. Only america has the freedom to be ontologically evil, because we are so powerful that nobody could stop us from being perfectly good, style of thing.
Like when the Reds go off on the downfall naratives they are only talking about their hobby horses; which is why the countries they point to as positive counterexamples are usually kinda pathetic in the ways that I care about.
DBDr
1yr ago
If you will pardon some hysterical left wring political doomerism:
I think I'm having an AI risk moment, and you guys are doing it to me!
I was always kinda skeptical of leftist claims re. right wing fascism in the US.
Yes, claiming the election was stolen is a little ehhhhh, but it is also just more traditional right wing signaling about corrupt institutions and blah blah blah.
Yes, circling the wagons around Trump and friends when they were doing clearly sketchy/criminal shit was a little fucked, but could I honestly say the left or the libs wouldn't do the same thing in exchange for the presidency? Of course not.
Yes, conservative justices are openly political and have only enough respect for precedent to secure the fig leaf with blue tack, but come on now. Roe v Wade, anyone?
The reaction of right wing populists, elected officials, intellectuals, and media regarding our lovable insane maga hammerbro doing a little trolling are making me wig out. People I thought were wrong but serious passing around clear bullshit about gay escorts, pretending the dude wasn't Q radicalized, and laughing it off. It's one thing for the lunatic fringe to do that shit, it's another entirely when the largest single conservative news network and most popular intellectuals are doing it.
Then I come here for a dose of sanity, and I have to dig DEEP into the replies before I find anyone positing the plainly obvious: that if you say your political opponents are child rapist election stealing perverts, some section of the population will actually believe the literal words you are saying and "take action".
Maybe I'm just having a little moment and will regress to mean in a couple weeks, but this particular incident has shifted me from "no" to "They would if they could" regarding conservatives in this country, at least temporarily.
I was already armed because I think guns are fun and cool and are never gonna be banned regardless of how many schools get shot up so I might as well have fun, now I'm shopping around for my local John Brown chapter.
(also, if you are apolitical or don't mind some leftism from time to time and are looking for a gun club, the John Brown Gun Club and SRA are actually really chill and safe, so far. Much better than the local non-denominational clubs. I haven't been flagged once by a dude shoulder carrying his AR with closed bolt and magazine loaded yet, which is a damn sight better than the public ranges in SC.)
One last thing while I'm thinking about it: Dude once showed up to the range with the sickest Springfield armory 1911 I've ever seen, all nickel and smooth as glass and beautiful as fuck, one of their 2000$ fancy jobs. Predictably everyone gathered around and asked to see it like a bunch of 7 year olds for a foil pokemon card, then dude turns around and fucking holds me up with it practically. Scary as fuck. He let me shoot it afterwards though, so that was something.
DBDr
11mo ago
Don't be. (speaking form a blue tribe bubble and a leftist position here)
Trump is uniquely bad to the libs among us because he is a norm violator and has the affect and language of a low IQ prole type AND is also a tacky tasteless fat rich guy; a fucking unforgivable combo. Ron on the other hand is your standard political reptilian. Boring, in other words. Too bad for him, he is really on the horns here.
His problem is he needs to assume some of that trumpian glory and make himself exciting; which will also make people excited to vote against him. Him going full speed ahead on his culture war arc has the libs and the left taking notice; too many photos of empty library shelves and pallets full of books being removed, too much rhetorical light surrounding the don't say gay bill (eg; "its only grades 1-3/5/12/colleges also now) ; regardless of the how fake the whole thing is.
It's all great ammunition, and trump still being around is keeping the spirit alive in the base. I've been at socal wine tastings where the toast was "To trump and bidden: please don't die before 2025".
Basically, in order to inhabit Trump as a spirit totem, he needs to become more trumplike and piss off all the boring lib centrists out there.
DBDr
10mo ago
Modern Christian music as a genera is (ironically) 100% soulless garbage retreads of pop but with all the nono words and impure thoughts stripped out.
There is really good Christian music (Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around for example); but it isn't categorized as Christian.
That said, there us about 1200 years of really excellent liturgical music to be had if you like choral or classical or bluegrass stylings.
Yo, 5 year plan the board game would be fucking incredible. Secret Hitler like; but everyone knows who Stalin is and he has to hit certain (real) production numbers or he gets killed, some random number of players want him killed, some random number are loyal, with stated production being the only real signal Stalin gets and real production getting totaled at the end.
Could be fun if someone good designed it.
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