dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
No bio...
User ID: 583
So! There's a tiny chance I'll be booted out of the US because 5 decades ago my parents were illegal immigrants and the SCOTUS might agree they were foreign invaders, thereby yanking my birthright citizenship.
Meanwhile, right-wing nativist Chuds in my parents' country have decided they think bloodline-based citizenship is the actual menace and are taking steps towards ending it.
I don't really want to live in the old country, but to add insult to injury it's narrowly possible I'll lose residency in the US while my kids become ineligible for residence in the old country and navigating that sounds really unpleasant.
This is really speculative of course. But for peace of mind, are there any decent countries that I can buy a citizenship in? Either cash money or via "investment"? The obvious contenders like Cyprus and Portugal seem to have scaled back the enticements recently.
It's a blowjob, dude. It’s erotica by its very nature. It shouldn’t be in the public library.
It's actually a strap-on. And neither of the characters finds it sexy. The scene is meant to be awkward.
Confused teens not even knowing how to fuck might be gross but it doesn't strike me as erotica.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
2mo ago
Yes, before, if China approached your country and said you must take your pick: the US or China, you would probably pick the US.
After all of this unhinged clown shit, if the US says you must choose between the US and China, it's a tough call!
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3mo ago
Doesn't seem like the best idea if you have declining fertility because you can't even get your own domestic original stock bloods to reproduce.
You eventually have to make up the deficit with foreigners and it's better to have foreigners with domestic great grandparents than no relation at all.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
11d ago
My problem with Iran is that I do not have a good model of just how nutty they are, really. I would model their close ally Hamas as being willing to sacrifice every soul in Gaza to kill a few 10k or 100k Jews. Presumably they are less crazy than that.
What do you think of the use of child soldiers and also child martyrs?
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3mo ago
Given that the US very much wanted Russia to join the capitalist democratic world order and get rich and fat and bent over backwards to try to make it happen I don't see that as a huge credit to him. There was an oil boom, forgiveness of debts, invitation to the WTO, and even talks of having them join NATO and he squandered all of it. It was like a once in a civilization offer.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3mo ago
I would just like to underscore what a huge bitch I still think Putin is.
I've heard commodities traders say Gazprom would be the world's most valuable company if it wasn't inside of Putin's oligarchy, for example.
He has made the world strictly worse, especially for Russians.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
3mo ago
Wait what. If you don't think due process was already dispensed with in the first batch of people who were deported directly to a foreign prison without judicial review I'm not sure what continuing to exchange information here will accomplish.
We don't need nuclear weapons to open a can of whup ass on Russia. We can use our conventional forces for that and the gloves will be off if they use nukes in a war of conquest.
And even if we obliterate all of their power projection capability, it's still better for them to just take that and not choose suicide by nuking us directly.
The only reason we need to use nukes is to guarantee Armageddon if they nuke us.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
4mo ago
I can only pitty the fools that still do preorders, can someone explain to me what consumers get out of them?
My guess is the bulk of gamers have limited means and a "better spend my money on things I like while I have it now" mentality. They might not have the money on or after release day. The option to pay for it in advance is the perk, a wise investment in future happiness.
So... what's the Elon deficit reduction strategy here? Get like 5-10% of the government to resign, maybe fire another 5-10%, then go to congress and say look we can spend 10-20% less on salaries, go ahead and pass a reduced budget through reconciliation?
This actually sounds not too crazy.
Hopefully losing 10-20% of the work force doesn't cause a corresponding 10-20% reduction in government revenues but... it's kind of hard to see how it would.
EDIT: maybe something's wrong with me but I consider this topic fun and not weighty which is why I posted it here in the Friday thread. Seems like it has created a more typical CW thread discussion. My bad.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
6mo ago
Remember, your company didn't take on any downside risk.
They took the risk of training them only to have them leave, actually.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
6mo ago
In large part, USA life expectancy is dragged down by non-trivial amount of blacks. If you compare Japanese Americans lifespans vs Japanese in Japan, the latter have it shorter despite "better healthcare".
I guess I know what I'm spending some ChatGPT o1 credits on.
I'm in the fat shaming as a form of public health camp but I do sympathize with the morbidly obese. I think we need to adopt Japanese habits if we want to save people from becoming obese in the first place.
But if someone is already obese I believe they're likely irreversibly damaged wrt regulating their own weight.
At my heaviest I hit 260 pounds. Through a moderate amount of discipline I can keep it parked between 210 and 220. Through extreme dieting I can get down to 190 but then I can't stop thinking about food and lose my shit and relapse.
My doctor suggested I would ideally be between 170-180 and that seems impossible tbh.
I have to imagine those set points scale linearly; if I ever hit as much as 400 pounds for whatever reason, my moderate effort would only ever get me down to 320 at most and falling below that would be unsustainable effort.
This is probably the best one can hope for as not ignorant, not entitled and not stupid and it's not great.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
2d ago
Too many undesirables from Brazil using it to resettle, apparently.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
10d ago
You know. The deep state. Them. The powers that be.
More seriously, if Trump convenes the extremely serious military people and they present him a limited menu of military actions he can do that is basically the same set of plans they've had for 20 years, that's the MIC at work. The names and faces can change but the dusty binder from the drawer stays the same.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
12d ago
Except "winning" the war with Iran in this case means simply preventing them from projecting force into the rest of the Middle East. If Iran can't stop Israel from blowing up their military assets or nuclear developments or their leaders they aren't much of a threat anymore.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
5mo ago
I don't think following a GPT-from-scratch lecture is going to get you there
I wasn't claiming that. Just trying to support the claim that they were more open in the past. I doubt any novel AI technique discovered in the future will even have that.
I'm not convinced that they have any left to make.
Counting out the most absurdly well resourced AI lab with a history of breakthrough success seems fairly bold.
Have you forgotten what they taught you, though? I find with a lot of non-fiction I lose episodic memory of the book but I retain semantic memory of much of its theses
Let's take Guns, Germs and Steel for example. It's a scholarly tome, as far as books go, and I read every single page of it. But I don't think I was better off for it than reading the Wikipedia article about it.
If the book was an ultimately awesome information resource, it would present the thesis and allow me to interrogate it further in whatever parts I needed more detail or evidence about. Instead it just went on in exhaustive detail from start to finish. This wish isn't a novelty, I spent hours upon hours reading it and it felt completely unnecessary!
(And despite the monumental effort he put into writing it and justifying it, his thesis is probably wrong)
I run 6 days a week, lift weights 3 days a week and intermittent fast from 6pm to 10am. I don't eat "processed" foods either. I've still been gaining weight and DEXA scans confirm that it's actually fat that's being gained.
I've been struggling with obesity since I was a teenager[1]. I had a foothold on it in my 30s in that I was simply overweight and not obese but now it feels out of my control completely. Until...
Personally, I think I just enjoy food more than other people. God I love food. I love eating. It is basically the only thing I really enjoy in life. When I bite into a home made migas taco, the melted cheese, the crunch of the fried tortilla strips*, the creamy avocado, it makes my whole brain light up. I am salivating just writing this.
Have you considered... Semaglutide!? I went on it recently and the effect is pretty interesting. Mostly it's a lot more psychological than "physical", for me, so far. I can feel hungry and be in the kitchen, and feel like snacking, but all of the snacks seem like too much work to get out and eat. So I don't.
Cue meme where person with ADHD does Adderall and they're bewildered at their insane focus and energy and cry that this must be how normal people feel all of the time. But non-ironically.
- And no it did not magically get fucking better living in Europe. The food in America is not uniquely poisonous.
You are very biased in favor of defending the system.
The irony in facing accusations like this is that I irrationally refuse to sign up for any company like UH or Cigna or whatever because I find them too triggering to work with and instead use some low-cost possibly-a-scam health ministry and just pay out of pocket the rest of the time.
I'm also a rare person who has experienced health care in multiple US states, including extreme Cadillac insurance and also Medicaid, and also "socialized medicine" in countries like the UK and Italy. At the end of this I'm generally burned out and annoyed by simplistic rationalizations and explanations.
The system sucks. Everywhere. In the sense that it's run by humans and have to deal with impossible demands and mis-aligned incentives. I don't think simple-minded analyses move the needle in a helpful direction. In fact they're usually wrong and sometimes just get people killed!
Ah yes more censorship of problems and calling everyone bad names and conspiracy theorists
I was not calling for censorship.
Then we use conventional weaponry to obliterate all of their power projection capability and they become a pariah even the rest of BRICS can no longer tolerate for having used nuclear weapons in a war of conquest.
And even in that case it still does not logically follow to choose nuclear armageddon (escalating nuclear weapons use).
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