fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
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User ID: 3415
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1yr ago
There is something so grim about driving by a bar just off a highway with a parking lot full of cars.
Also grim in that no one even bats an eye at the implications
fmac
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1yr ago
no one is seriously accusing them of being genocidal.
Ukraine's population is 20x the size of the population of Gaza, but the civilian death toll in Ukraine is 3x lower.
So on a per capita basis, Gazan's are dying at a per capita rate of ~42x higher. My incredibly rough math has 1 civilian death per 3,158 Ukrainian citizens (using 2022 population) versus 1 death per 74 Gazans.
Couple of orders of magnitude there.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1yr ago
I'm so torn on gambling. I'm generally staunchly in the "let people do things" camp, and I dislike regulating things that will immediately create uncontrollable black markets because the demand is very strong.
But holy shit gambling is a fucking disaster for our society. The explosion of sports betting has made me firmly convinced of this.
Crypto at least is harder to get into and plausibility useful. Same with prediction markets
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1yr ago
sell already cold beer for off premises consumption, because people use it to drink and drive
Do you think that the coldness of beer is a large determinant for whether or not people drink and drive?
fmac
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1yr ago
While your nuanced take is true, this is a funny video
fmac
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1yr ago
Yeah the Iranians are a disaster shit show.
Much like the Russians pre-2022, I thought they were much more sophisticated than they actually were. Then things started exploding and they turned out to be yet another paper tiger.
Praying we get the same twist with China, very worried we will not
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1yr ago
I did some googling and actually much less than I would have expected. Common L for clickbait media. Good to know though, kinetic deaths feel slightly less gruesome.
I guess I'll amend my sentence above to "and then you look and Gazan civilians are being killed at close to a 30:1 ratio, with no clear end in sight and a guarantee that once the newest generation of traumatized kids grows up, this will happen all over again".
fmac
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1yr ago
idk I'm not the guy above, I just wanted to offer the thought that they don't only retreat
fmac
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1yr ago
Yeah the Israeli government is acting to its incentives, I get that. Every action has tradeoffs and consequences. This is the action-set that the Israeli people (and by extension their government) have chosen. I don't envy their choice, it's a nightmare.
But the consequences of their choices is permanent conflict around them, and a world (which to an extent they depend on) that is steadily losing sympathy for their plight.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. This conflict is so fucking long and there's so much bad blood, I don't ever see it ending unless someone rips the band-aid off and ends it with a final... solution? But that won't happen so instead it'll just limp along. At this point the Israeli's and the Palestinian's deserve each other.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1yr ago
I'm not saying Iran isn't an idiot for being in this situation. Their hostility to Israel is a massive, profound, and decades long unforced error. Although hard to blame them about being mad about the Shah. But we've done worse to countries and now we're chill (Vietnam, Germany, Japan) so if they'd suck it up they'd be better off.
I'm talking about the situation at hand though. Iran and Israel have beef, is it stupid? Yes. But it is real, and Iran getting nukes is bad. And clapping on Iran makes them want nukes more, I think that's also bad.
fmac
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1yr ago
What is an example of a piece of history of the conflict that you think would change people's minds if they were aware of it?
This is what gets me. At a certain point once the conflict spans generations and over 100+ years, "who started it" is the most useless question/discussion topic.
Every time someone tries to dunk with "well X did Y so the current Z situation is their fault" it is just so laughable.
fmac
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1yr ago
But never their settlements in the West Bank, which do a lot of the heavy lifting in pissing people off.
fmac
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1yr ago
The Holocaust was obviously worse. It just contrasts extremely poorly when part of the founding mythos of the country is "we need a save haven for our people, who have suffered greatly" and then you look and Gazans are dying of malnutrition and preventable diseases purely because the Isreali's won't let food in.
History doesn't repeat, but it's definitely rhyming.
Random not very related thought, but the exact same logic applies more broadly to the hardcore lefty's, who are also the more irrational pro-palestinians. They all claim they hate the structures of power that perpetuate racism or sexism , but they don't actually dislike the structure, they just want their people at the top of it. Makes it hard to take them seriously.
fmac
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1yr ago
I agree. Also helped they were part of an actually productive civilization that had ethics and values which pushed them into prosperity
Also also they got shitloads of money to rebuild, which I think always softens attitudes somewhat.
fmac
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1yr ago
You break the country and the people decisively, and you relocate the survivors, and a few generations later you have a rough peace.
I'm not sure what aspect of horseshoe theory is at play here, but I never thought this would be the topic that we both agreed on
fmac
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1yr ago
Oh I see, in that case yeah
This conflict is so funny in that it seems to turn people's brains off way harder than other ones (on both sides).
It's so nakedly partisan if someone isn't blaming every side for the 100+ years of tit for tat revenge.
I used to think there was a solution and I don't anymore. The Isreali's and the Palestinian's deserve each other.
I do assign Isreal a larger share of the responsibility to end it these days though, given they have so much more power. There's also something so amazing about saving them from the Holocaust only for them to immediately go start kicking someone smaller than them, you'd think of all the people they'd be marginally more sympathetic lol.
fmac
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1yr ago
Sorry, I meant they can coexist with America / the western world
Ahhhhh, in that case, yeah
Their greatest moral failure has been half-assing it.
Seriously, it's very similar to the state of native Americans (and Australians). That at least has an end. Assimilation will win eventually I think.
fmac
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1yr ago
They've been brought up on that oppressor / oppressed narrative and see every part of the world through it
This feels kind of reductive when this is one of the most clear cut dynamics of oppressor / oppressed in the world right now.
At this point almost two years in, how many times has the population of Gaza needed to walk to the north/South of the area so that Isreal can flatten another part of the half they just left?
They have 0 control over the amount of calories their population receives.
Definition of the word "oppressed" is "subject to harsh and authoritarian treatment." It's hard to think of examples of a more oppressed group right now, aside from gamers of course.
fmac
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1yr ago
I'm not sure if I'm sentimental, I just have a hard time feeling mad at them. I also have a preference for less human suffering in the world.
It's like having trashy neighbors who loudly fight and domestic each other. I get why they're both hurt, but I'm not going over there to facilitate couples' counseling. They can spend the rest of their lives making each other miserable if they want. I'd prefer they made up so I didn't have to hear it, but it's not that annoying.
Part of me wonders if everyone would have been better off if the Isreali's had just ripped the band aid off back in the day and just straight pushed them out/completed the ethnic cleansing. The displaced Palestinians would still be salty, but they'd be a few generations into moving on by now, and they'd probably get bombed way less.
fmac
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1yr ago
It's such a stupid idea, there's no way they will
I said the exact same thing loudly and confidently about Russia going into Ukraine though, so...
fmac
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1yr ago
I used to enjoy going on /r/stupidpol
Eternal September comes for everyone eventually.
I really liked that sub, I owe it a solid debt of gratitude for shaping my thinking in some ways. I learned a lot, and also laughed a lot. It was basically antibodies for my intense dislike of the woke mob.
But man, they just cannot stop taking the stupidest most contrarian positions on things purely because the out group likes the other thing. Makes the discussion so lame and predictable.
fmac
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1yr ago
the genocidal jihadis are oppressed
I think it's very possible for them to be both genocidal and oppressed. I also think being genocidal has made them oppressed, and being oppressed guarantees they stay genocidal.
To pre-empt "you're a bleeding heart lefty", if I were dictator of my country, I would absolutely ensure a Palestinian refugee diaspora did not form in my country. This does not go well for the hosts typically.
However, half the Gaza strip is under the age of ~20. They've grown up living lives of poverty in a ""country"" that you can walk end to end in about 8 hours, and it's not easy to leave. I'm sure they grow up hearing stories of friends/family/neighbors who've lost loved ones, been injured, or lost their homes to isreali strikes.
If you or I were born there, we'd hate Jews too. I have a very hard time holding teenagers accountable for the beliefs they were born into.
If I were designing an environment to incubate terrorists I don't think I could do much better than the Gaza strip, it's basically a terrorist factory.
I'm pretty black pilled on the whole situation. I think both sides are too deep and too stubborn to ever resolve it. I think they deserve each other.
Episode #1052 of "the British Empire setting up geopolitical nightmares for the world in 100 years"
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