functor
22hr ago
Keir Starmer was an underrated PM. Wokeness was scaled back under Keir Starmer. The great awokening happened under the Tories and the UK is in many ways less woke now than when then tories left office. Immigration has declined immensely since Keir Starmer took office. He kept the UK out of the Iran war, he started the construction of new nuclear power and he revitalized the UK armed forces.
As a rightwinger Keir Starmer has been far more successful than Boris Johnson.
functor
2d ago
It is in their collective interest. Jews have lived in Europe for 2000 without being able to assimilate. They have done so by having numerous rules and conventions that make it difficult to interact with Goyim. For example their food rules make it hard for them to share a meal with Goyim.
They have an exceptionally ethnocentric religion with a strong sense of them and us.
They have been in constant conflict with their host populations. Nothing unites a population like an external enemy.
Israel has some super woke people. It has some of the most fanatical religious people in the middle east. They have people who are genetically largely European and some who are north African and some who are from Persia. They have little to unite them except a common enemy. If Israel had been founded on an island with no enemies it would have torn itself apart by now.
Jews require constant conflict with the outside world and that is what makes their religion so difficult for the rest of us.
functor
5d ago
What was Trump going to do? Iran was blocking 13 million barrels of oil a day and it is clear that they could hold out for a long time. Iran has 93 million people, is energy self sufficient and has an economic policy centred around self sufficiency. The oil price shot up and with it came inflation. The price stayed at acceptable levels due to the vast amount of oil in reserves and in the system. However, as that started to run dry the economic fallout would have been disastrous.
If Trump tries to weasel his way out of this Iran can shut down the straight.
As for Iranian long term strategy Russia is building several thousand long term drones a month. If Iran builds 500 a month they will have 60 000 in 10 years. That is enough to wreck the gulf state and their oil infrastructure. Especially combined with a missile stockpile several times what they had going into this war.
functor
7d ago
What else do you call it when we blow up hundreds of targets and they fail to meaningfully retaliate?
By that metric the US won in Afghanistan and Vietnam. The difference is Iran was bombed a fraction as hard and retaliated.
Do you believe Iran still has working nuclear facilities?
Yes, you can't bomb a facility hundreds of meters below a mountain without nukes. The wmd story failed in Iraq and we shouldn't fall for the same lie now.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/last-rounds-status-key-munitions-iran-war-ceasefire
There are good breakdowns of US missile stockpiles. The US was dimensioned for a regional war and blew through a large chunk of their stockpile to replace Khomeini with Khomeini.
The US was pushing for a ceasefire
functor
7d ago
Never before has a winner of a war had to claim 39 times that the nightmare is about to end. The US would have tried to escort ships through the strait except they couldn't. Trump had to promise the markets that the war soon would end to control the oil prices and he is now giving Iran tens of billions of dollars and peace in Lebanon in order to bail himself out.
The US didn't achieve regime change, it didn't militarily defeat Iran and it didn't get rid of the nuclear program. The US once again started a regime change war and tried to spread woke ideology in the middle east and lost. At least Trump didn't drag it out for 20 years.
The US couldn't protect Bahrain, UAE or the Saudis.
Why do you think you know how many missiles America has? Because it was in a news report somewhere?
Several THAAD launchers gone, 1200+ patriot missiles and several thousand cruise missiles spent trying to blow up bunkers that are deep under mountains. It didn't achieve much and Shahed drones are way easier to replace than the extremely expensive radars they blew up.
The propagandists are the ones who sold defending a regime full of Chai boy rapists in Afghanistan for 20 years because this was going to bring DEI to Afghanistan. The propagandists were the ones who lied about WMD in order to start a war that decimated Iraq's Christian population. I didn't fall for it then, I am not falling for it now.
Iran cannot destroy American planes?
Forgetting all the aircraft downed.
Iran has most of its missiles and drones and bunkers built to withstand nukes won't be blown up by getting bombed by conventional weapons. Irans missile cities were firing to the last day of fighting despite the US blasting through its missile inventory to try to take them out. This gives us a glimpse for what will happen on Guam when the US tries to save pride month in Taiwan.
functor
7d ago
Iran closing the strait would lead to massive energy spikes that would cripple the global economy and America would rush to surrender
Oil prices doubled and the US started to promise regularly that they were working on a surrender and oil supply would quickly come back. The expected American surrender brought prices down.
Iran's nuclear program would continue uninterrupted.
The one that was obliterated last June?
Many people speculated that Iran would soon sink American ships
Instead they relocated 1000km from Iran and gave up on the idea of breaking the Iranian blockade.
innocent oil tankers,
A bunch were sunk, a bunch paid money to Iran to get through and most have been stuck.
America did not rush to surrender.
Except sign a peace deal 2.5 months into the war in which they didn't achieve a single stated objective after Trump claimed the war is soon over 39 times?
The US spent 40% of its missiles to end up signing a surrender in which Iran gets tens of billions of dollars, gets sanctions removed and effectively has the strait of Hormuz as its bargaining chip. American bases got smashed, the US abandoned its allies after dragging them into a war and the rest of the world views Trump as crazy. The few thousand people in Iran who wanted the US to bring woke-ideology to Iran were conveniently disposed of when they tried an armed insurrection that failed spectacularly.
Iran got invaded, hit back hard and forced the US to give major concessions to end the war 2.5 months in. This is a spectacular win that showed the countries in the region that the US is untrustworthy.
functor
7d ago
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Lebanon and Iran are negotiating together. If Israel is occupying Lebanon the straight is closed. There can't be a 2.5 year Gaza debacle with Iran blockading 13% of global oil.
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Israel is currently more mobilized than Ukraine or Russia. It is a country which non extremist jewish population isn't much larger than Denmark's population. They have to keep several hundred thousand soldiers mobilized continuously. Israel isn't going to be a functioning state if this is their long term trajectory. Israel's international popularity is tanking. Israel is turning into French Algeria, South Vietnam, Rhodesia and South Africa. A small state which minimal natural resources that is rapidly turning the world against it is in deep trouble. The more Israel is ethnically cleansing Christian areas, bombing Beirut and causing constant headlines about war in the middle east the less popular they become.
functor
7d ago
They also had a ceasefire agreement in April that ended with ships not going through the straight due to Israel continuing to bomb Lebanon.
functor
19d ago
Both sides want ships to pass through while neither side wants a deal that the other can accept. In the last 24 hours 11 ships have transited. Other fuels have gone through saudi arabia to the red sea. Iranians are trading at record rates through the caspian sea, pakistan and through central asia. Iraq has a land boarder with Turkey.
The doomsday scenario is overblown. We are not going to see a mass collapse of the economy after oil spikes to 250 dollars. What we will get is a dragged out forever war that is going to drain the US navy causing years of maintenance backlog while keeping oil at 100+ dollars per barrel and inflation a few percent higher than projected with meagre economic growth. Trump is stuck, and the war isn't going to end due to a shock. The US is going to go woke again because Trump decided the middle east was more important than the US.
functor
22d ago
The primary smell test is if a person promoting something is only using one brand. Does he only use chatgpt and never mention something else? Then that is fishy. Does he hop between models and providers than it is probably genuine excitement.
Speaking of covert LLM marketing I was recently invited to a meetup that specifically mentioned claude code vibe coding. There was no official sponsor yet they had rented a somewhat fancy venue and there were heaps of food. They were going to another city to do the same thing the day after. According to themselves they were just passionate about claude code.
Considering the boatload of money invested into these spaces it makes sense to market their products and traditional advertising probably gives less bang for the buck.
functor
24d ago
but total US energy dominance outweighs such petty concerns.
https://en.macromicro.me/collections/26367/electricity/142474/us-vs-china-total-electricity-generation China is by 2026 roughly producing 2.5x the electricity that the US produces. EU + Norway + Switzerland + UK produces about 3300 TWh per year compared to the US which produces roughly 4050. The US onlu produces about 22.5% more electricity than Europe.
functor
30d ago
80% of people still have their webdev job, and now they are about 5x more effective each. It turns out the demand for webdev has 4x'd.
I was in a meeting with an investor a few days ago who commented on every pitch looking the same since they are all using the same AI. Startups are becoming graphically similar since they are using lovable to churn out MVPs and wireframes. If people can quickly hop on a trend and generate similar looking content websites will look dated quicker. If companies can more easily hop on the next trend and update their UI at a lower cost the speed of trends will move faster. This means more work.
functor
1mo ago
Ukraine's equiptment losses are far higher
Ukraine has an enormous number of desertions that are difficult to explain in any other way than soldiers wandering into the steel storm and not returning. Russia is pounding Ukraine with 8000 airstrikes a month. That is one airstrike every 125 meters of frontline every month. These airstrikes aren't random but guided and aimed at Ukrainian positions. One bomb is enough to level an apartment building.
functor
1mo ago
2022 we saw a massive Ukrainian counter offensive in Kharkiv and Kherson. retaking a decently sized city, multiple towns and a sizeable piece of land.
2023 there was the infamous summer offensive but it was large scale and a powerful attack.
2024 Ukraine launched a major offensive into Kursk pressing 24 km into Russia proper.
2026 Ukraine has recaptured some positions that have recently been captured by Russia and were poorly consolidated. Despite Ukraine heavily prioritizing its offensive units when it comes to manpower and equipment they have managed to achieve their most lacklustre counter-attack in the war. Looking at the Russian numbers they are taking roughly as much territory as they were last year. The difference is that the net gain is lower due to a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Meanwhile Ukrainian losses are high while Russian confirmed losses are unusually low.
functor
1mo ago
To be fair patriot front hasn't had the same issues with violence. They are able to do street activism without mayhem. Their uniforms are cringe and they should change their outfits but other than that they seem to be better organized than previous groups.
I do think demonstrations still can work. They can get a lot of attention, they still attract newcomers and plenty of people who were activists on the street 15 years ago are now podcasters, internet activists and donors to political parties.
With that said it would of course be easier without repression.
functor
1mo ago
As someone who has attended a decent number of high risk demonstrations in Europe my take is that the unite the right rally was a failure of planning. First don't announce demonstrations far in advance. This gives time for antifa to mobilize. Antifa require a numerical advantage and their mobilization is slow. Demonstrations should only be announced when absolutely required.
Posting times and places is a major mistake. We used to apply for permits to demonstrate in one place and then go to another place and hold our rally there. We would be done before antifa had found our new spot.
The biggest mistake is assembling at the demonstration and then dispersing afterwards. Participants should never ever meet up on location but need to meetup somewhere far away and travel there in a group. Participants don't even need to know where they are going after assembling. Once the participants arrive on location the demonstration has to be efficient. Hanging around in the park while waiting for people was incompetent. Once people arrive on site the demonstration has to start within a minute.
The police tried to disperse the crowd forcing James Fields into the crowd of antifa by himself. At no point should he have done this. If the police push you towards antifa sit down and refuse to move. They can't physically force a thousand people to spread out one and one. The exit needs to be coordinated, and you can make deals with the police to leave as a group. Even with police dispersal leaving alone doesn't make sense. They should at least have left in small groups. The event is not over until hours later when everyone has safely returned. We often went home in groups making sure we would be a team of people at each house as antifa would ambush people as they came home.
The organizers of unite the right lacked the experience of groups like casa pound or generation identity and made beginner mistakes. They needed to learn by doing small scale street activism and building an activist culture. Instead they went straight for a mass event with predictable results.
The police love instigating fights and then arresting people for them. Antifa can throw things at a demonstration and then demonstrators get arrested for throwing things back. The police are not the demonstrators friend and they often have dirty tricks like forcing demonstrations into bad terrain, pushing demonstrations into tight spaces, holding people for long periods in bad weather and letting antifa get really close.
As for James Fields people react differently under riot like situations. A riot is surreal and the closest thing you can experience to a medieval battle. Especially inexperienced people need to have others around them to take care of them. He also needed a reliable lawyer available for advice from day one. This should have been provided by the organizers. Demonstrators need to be properly coached on what they can and can't do and how to handle arrests.
functor
1mo ago
And why not refine it yourself if you can? Being dependent on imported fuel is a risk and a cost.
functor
1mo ago
John McCain and Victoria Nuland were on Maidan square together and the US was actively funding groups in Ukraine and pushing for regime change. There was clear Ambition to expand NATO east and to cross Russia's red lines even though they were fully aware this would lead to a major war.
functor
1mo ago
- Israel sold the plan of instigating a revolution in Iran:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html
Trump admitted he gave weapons to protestors:
the US attacked Iran in 1941 and overthrew the government in 1953
Admittedly the war was more of a British thing at first but the US was clearly involved in the subsequent occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
The US overthrew a democratically elected leader and installed a brutal dictator.
the US paid Iraq to invade Iran;
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/22/us-plans-to-attack-seven-muslim-states
Netanyahu and the neocons have been pushing hard for war against Iran. US politicians talk openly about overthrowing Iran.
Iran was warming up to the west after 9/11
One bombing in the 80s fundamentally doesn't matter that much when millions have died in the middle east.
functor
1mo ago
The number one fossil fuel producer in the world is the US which is also the number one nuclear producer.
Russia is the third largest fossil fuel producer in the world and has over the past decade been the number two country in building new nuclear.
UAE has fossil fuels as a main export yet has built a large nuclear power plant.
functor
1mo ago
Biden helped Al Qaeda take over Syria.
Obama bombed Libya to the stone age, surged troops in Afghanistan, started the first Ukraine war and helped jihadists take half of Syria.
George Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump's first term was relatively peaceful and Trump was the first candidate in a long time to be outspoken in his criticism of previous wars.
functor
1mo ago
The US attacked Iran in 1941 and then overthrew the government in 1953. In the 1980s it paid Iraq to invade Iran which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians. Since then the US has invaded a neighbouring country three times and launched to more wars in the past year against Iran. Israel helped jihadists take over Syria, a country that has friendly relations with Iran. The US and Israel has bombed Iranian embassies, flooded Iran with migrants and heroin, sanctioned Iran, shot down an Iranian airliner, assassinated plenty of Iranians and openly called for overthrowing the Iranian government.
This isn't Iran fighting a proxy war, this is Iran helping its neighbours in a justified way.
Iran wanted peace in 2001. The US refused it. The Iranians have tried to negotiate, and the US has murdered negotiators.
functor
1mo ago
Mossad and CIA have been backing all sorts of groups to create chaos in Iran.
functor
1mo ago
These protestors were armed by the US and Israel. It was an armed insurrection backed by an enemy state. Iran had every reason to shut if down and it is far better to shut it down than turn into Syria. The casualty numbers are sold to us by the same people who lied about every other regime change war.
The best argument against them is that it would be pretty much impossible to hide. Small objects in orbit are easy to track, anything entering out solar system at relativistic speeds and then braking to land on Earth would be detected. The power of the radio-waves required to send signals back to the alien solar system would be detected.
Aliens being hidden from us would require multiple governments to collaborate and cover up aliens. If the information regarding aliens is under absolute lockdown the only information available is from governments.
If aliens were widespread in our solarsystem we would have detected something by now. A major civilization isn't going to be silent.
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