BANNED USER: terrible poster who never improves
sliders1234
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User ID: 685
Banned by: @Amadan
sliders1234
1yr ago
“Iran and North Korea have goals that the US stands in the way of, and so bygones cannot be bygones until their goals change, or those of the US do.”
I agree with this. The US interferes with Iran’s historical place as the dominant Middle East hegemon. Vietnam and the US have mutual interests. Opposing Chinese dominance. Iran and the US have opposite interests since the US backs the Saudis as regional hegemon. So yes I agree if the Iranians just fell inline and realized they had less oil than the Saudis and accepted second rate status in their region then all would be good. This is like saying the US would just play nice if Russia was picking the governments of Canada and Mexico and the Bahamas and wouldn’t be backing military proxies to stress Russian military assets in the region.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Can you define “Iran hates Israel complete independent of Israel status as a U.S. Proxy”
I disagree with this. But I don’t know what it means. Whose Iran?
If Israel could offer Iran domination of Saudi Arabia and status as regional hegemon over the Arabs especially Saudi Arabia then Israel and Iran would be besties.
This is really just oil politics as it’s driving force. US backs Saudis because they have more oil than Iran. This allows Saudis to be the strongest regional power. Iranians don’t like Arabs and realistically think they’re sand negros. If Iran had more oil than the Arabs the US would have long ago found a way to be besties with Iran and made them the regional hegemon over the Arabs. But they don’t. Oil explains the dividing lines in this region of the world a lot more than Muslims don’t like Jews.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Vietnam isn’t a great power. Always a vassal. This is just everything good just bend the knee to America and ignores that other countries have goals and the US interferes with them.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I haven’t seen anything specific but based on Biden not sending more equipment it seems true. They will blame the GOP for not passing bills but supposedly he’s had plenty of authorization.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Sure for 50 years. I was trying to steelman. In 150 years it’s back to Canada and US in the view from Moscow.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I don’t think peace was ever on the table unless it meant return to pure vassal state. And Ukraine stays poor. Poland very well may be the strongest country in Europe in our lifetime. That’s a tough trade to do when you see how well being a real people like the Polish is.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I think the Irish would very optimistic. More likely criminality is reduced but they are a lower achieving social class that doesn’t contribute anything to national greatness and probably favor more social policies.
Nowhere near as bad as what Europe is facing but manageable.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Israel is a U.S. proxy. US has threatened Iran multiple times. Therefore, Israel is a proper target on Western influence.
Israel could just give up being a U.S. proxy but they aren’t going to do that.
This honestly just gets back to who did what bad first. The US has interfered with Iran and directly challenged their sovereignty. Now we cry when they fight back?
sliders1234
1yr ago
If you want to steelman it you would probably say Russia is thinking in centuries. Break Ukraine today and permenently put them in their sphere of influence. Then population rebounds and Ukraine maintains its historical place in the greater Slavic empire.
Of course that works in the 12th century but the world today feels less and less like land etc is going to matter.
sliders1234
1yr ago
And why did we the theocracy take power in 1979? I would have to reread my history for specifics but it’s something something awful oil deals with the west where Iran got none of the money. Then Iraq invaded. A little over ten years after that ended America invaded Iraq and puts a new hostile to Iran government in power. George Bush says something about Iran being evil and being that he just invaded Iraq it doesn’t sound like Iran itself is that secure.
This has a whole lot of who did what bad to who first in it. Regardless the west has chosen a path to not like Iran and threaten them and Iranian response has been funding proxy wars all over the place.
Iran can’t look at the Middle East or the world and just assume they get territorial integrity. Not when the West invaded Iraq and broke Syria.
It’s far too broad of a brush to say Iran is the aggressor. Israel-Iran is a proxy war in the Saudi-Iran and US-Iran proxy wars.
I guess you could say Iran bad because Islam bad and theocracy is bad (I am not against theocracy) and America is good because Democracy is good and well I’m bored and want to culture war some but also Pride flags are good. But blaming Iran as the aggressor seems factually false.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I think it’s mostly a myth that most of the ME is against them. It feels to me like they are now just a chip in geopolitical games. The Saudis supposedly helped with air defense yesterday. Long-term MBS seems to understand that oil will not always be the economic tool for Saudi Arabia and he does not want his country to go back to being goat herders. Israel and tech transfer seems to be a part of his long-term game. If Israel wasn’t friends with the Arabians I would guess that Iran would be openly interested in deal-making.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Supposedly Bidens already told Israel not to do anything. This looks like a fake attack.
Taxpayers spend $2 billion.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I expect nothing from Israel. This feels like a textbook we have to do something but don’t want to escalate so we sent an attack that is easily defended. I believe Iran even said they consider the matter settled.
Honestly though Iran probably needed a handful of dead Israelis. This feels like a prepackaged diplomatic attack.
sliders1234
1yr ago
The city where every house has the ugliest siding I’ve ever seen yet people keep using the same siding. I grew up there so I can make it fun of it. When I go back I notice how much of the city just had awful curb appeal compared to the rest of America. Maybe it just sticks out more being a hill town.
The big culture war angle here is your insistent that the poors be allowed a space in the good communities and I get the sense you think that will fix the poors. I’ve come to the belief it’s better to be separate and a lot of American cities have suffered because they could not do that. Leading to rational middle and upper middle class leaving for the suburbs and less crime and more control over schooling. If we just kept the poors from the city America would have higher productivity growth.
There are many reasons why Pittsburgh has had a rebound. One reason is not getting a huge Great Migration. The other reason is the topography leading to isolated communities which meant many areas could feel perfectly safe. As someone whose lived in Chicago for a long time we frequently would look at the news and see 10 shots fired a few blocks away at 4 am. Why would anyone want to live like that unless you were forced to. Sure you probably won’t catch a stray bullet (but you might as we literally have a case like a dead UC student on the EL catching a bullet). Life really is a lot better when you do not interact with the forces of ghettoization.
Also worth mentioning that a big reason Pittsburgh had appeal is all of the money Carnegie left to build up cultural institutions.
The sports teams are interesting. The big thing is they have won more than a city like Pittsburgh should win. The city not being in a big other cultural world like the coast means a rabid fan base. The diaspora means Pittsburgh fans are everywhere.
At the end of the day AC means that Pittsburgh will never be as significant as it once was. The existing infrastructure and cultural heritage will keep a lot of people there.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I believe the big thing for them is availability and consistency. Like a McDonalds worker with great grammar and can do algebra and make an identical Big Mac at 4 am.
Simplistically Mr Banker meets with CEO at 3 PM on Tuesday. He gets feedback from the client on what they are thinking. At 7 PM he gives updates to his analysts. At 4 am the analyst have all the materials updated. At 7 am the printers have finished documents. At 8 am the banker has the new reports in his briefcase. At 9 am the Banker again meets with CEO and closes the deal.
And everything has to look perfect because it’s a big deal. Just having the correct numbers won’t work because it looks sloppy for that size of deal so hours spent picking out just the right shade of blue for a pie chart.
That’s my understanding of the job.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I don’t see any shitty parenting unless there is a lot more going on. A few text messages that look bad. If a prosecutor went thru my phone they will find plenty of shitty stuff I’ve done and a lot of stuff out of context.
I had some rough times in school sometime. Kids get depressed. Bullying happens. Most just grow up. Kids need to work thru there issues and grow up. I’m fairly certain Elon Musks had shittier parents than this. Very few kids grow up a member of the Brady Bunch and my guess is the vast majority of kids have some family dysfunction.
This actually scares me this definition of “shitty parents” because it sounds a lot like helicopter parenting instead of what I think is much better of just letting kids do what they want to do. I think the latter leads to children being much better adults and key to them developing their own self-esteem. I don’t want a legal standard where a parent needs to micromanage every bad thought their kids have.
I agree with guns should be locked up and secure. Though I feel like there is a ton of hypocrisy here as I’ve never seen a black father convicted of this.
sliders1234
1yr ago
If the sides were completely reversed in all ways then Yes.
But I am not going to say I would support Jewish removal just because Arabs were strong if the Jews were not repeatedly picking fights with their neighbors. If the Jews did 10/7 to Egypt and Egypt decided to deport them to Europe it would seem fair to me.
I think pushing Gazans into Egypt can definitely be morally justified. This war has been going on for 80 years and shows no evidence it will ever end. It can be debated but one can certainly take a view that it’s continuance is primarily the responsibility of Palestinians themselves. A final solution to just end the war but forcible removal can be justified on those grounds. Israel has no moral obligation to continue to support people who are basically a death cult against Israel’s existence.
Any point before say 1000 of the common era forcible removal of people was fine if you just wanted their land. I still don’t think we live in a time where a stronger power can’t be justified in getting rid of a weaker power that consistently makes war with them. I personally have no moral qualms of Israel pursuing a final solution to the Palestinian question at this point (not including death camps/mass executions etc).
The international community is likely doing a disservice to Palestinians. They are providing hope that diplomatic victory of some sort is attainable if the Israeli’s go too far. If you removed that hope they would seem to need to accept they need to change. But instead I guess they have some hope Israel gets cut-off and something something they kick all the Jews out of Israel.
Pensacola because I was tempted by it when I visited a now ex-gf dad so know what it would have costs. Dad was an idiot and had a reverse mortgage so could have bought 3500 sq ft for around 200k. So some renovations 100-150. Big enough to make some of the space Airbnb. 350 all-in with a little Airbnb money on the side. About a mile walk to ocean and about half a mile to downtown. Plumbers are a joke because they can make really good money. Pensacola isn’t going to get your highly educated friends to visit but if you have nurses or the skilled trades in your family it would sound fantastic.
Maybe more now with Florida boom but I would call that a nice QOL.
I am in Buenos Aires now and it’s completely chill. I feel completely safe. If you are Italian or like Italian food you may like it. There is no crime like big American cities. People are so passive. But then you are outside the American empire and it’s Spanish speaking.
Mexico City I do not know. I might visit some friends there but it seems much louder there.
I benefited from a lot of programs like these. I 100% agree with the concept. I just find the political element cringe. But it’s probably a good fundraiser tool. Now the Upper East Side housewife gets it quicker and can brag to her friends “I donated 50k so 50 maga kids met a Muslim (that’s the pic in the website)”. Way better use of money than donating 50k to the ADL or ActBlue. Feels less dehumanizing to me if it’s just I funded a bunch of poor kids to go on vacation somewhere else for a week.
If something is intrinsically good which I would agree this sounds intrinsically good to me it would be nice to just have it be that than add a political element to it.
Maybe I am over playing the politicization. They only said “our divided country”.
sliders1234
1yr ago
I hate the political angle on this. It feels leftist to me that “if we just had more schools/spent more money” we would not have “maga/disinformation problem” instead of most of things being fundamental disagreements.
That being said America is a vast country and a lot of Americans would benefit from getting to see more of it.
One of my own personal favorite trips was touring the gulf which has many unique places around it. It helped I had friends to see. But you get going thru their everything from old south (Pensacola for me), New Orleans it’s own animal, and Houston/small Texas towns to see a whole lot of culture and many different foods.
There are no doubt similar tours to be done that can take a couple weeks and involve 18 hrs or so of driving.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Problem with our COVID response is it was dumb and weaponized for politics and self-satisfaction. I would say it was just politics but I also think a lot of people thought they were the “good” people for being safe. It wasn’t just a rural/urban divide.
Things like 6 boosters for 20 something’s was dumb regardless of side. And over 50 being completely anti-vaxx regardless of side was dumb. Or students masking at Stanford while riding a bike was just dumb.
There were probably some policies that made more sense in urban areas like less in-person during waves to protect hospitals but the vast majority of the issues seem to me like one side was just being dumb regardless of density of their community.
sliders1234
1yr ago
Not enough detail to say but if the goal was cheap COL, English, nice weather I would likely choose Pensacola. Downside is it’s a second tier or maybe even third tier draw for people. So the high IQ types won’t be there. It’s like a vacation area for plumbers.
If you want cheap COL, high IQ people present, good weather than you look at top regional cities in developing world. But you won’t get English. Mexico City or any of those capitals will have global people and cheap COL.
sliders1234
1yr ago
The thing with these articles on gun violence and gun rights are they basically are talking about two completely different issues.
The overlap between gun enthusiast and gun crime are not the same people and do not have any significant policy overlap.
The US has zero interest in putting young black men in prison for gun possession. The 2nd amendment stuff doesn’t apply because even if we made guns illegal the prosecutors in cook Country don’t have the stomaches for locking them all up.
Gun restrictions in the US are about Kyle Rittenhouse types shooting AR-15 in the local forest. And self defense when the Feds decide to legalize looting in their town. Plus about 100 people dead per year from a nutty gun enthusiast going on a spree. There is overlap with the black on black crime described in the article.
Like the internet. There is a moderator involved. Israel can do as much as the US will tolerate. If they catch a ban (US decides to cut them off) then suddenly they probably can’t afford things like the Iron Dome especially in current warfare and even more drone attacks. It supposedly cost a billion dollars the other day and far less for Iran.
They can’t do things to the extent the US cuts them off and Iranian retaliation seems justified.
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