The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
In the same way that Hoover Dam was.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
Closing the Straits is the objective; without the US doing this, Iran might not even have to sink a single tanker to do it. The cost of the tankers isn't the problem; even if Iran sank a few, they're cheaper than the stuff we're dropping on Iran for free. The problem is even with American protection, you might not be able to get anyone to try to traverse the straits once a few tankers were sunk -- but that's true regardless of whether America was insuring them.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
I've been having some thoughts recently about the billionaires among us, some opinions, some takes even. My politics on this has evolved over time; at one point they were admirable titans of industry, then they were capitalist parasitic ticks, then they were a necessary part of the incentive structure that drives to economy, and now they are a bloated level of inefficiency preventing the market from functioning efficiently.
Elon Musk is an argument against ALL of these.
I guess I'm just kinda over us deciding that once you reach a certain net worth, you are some sort of luminous being. You can go to pedo island and it's fine
It turns out there was no pedo island, just hookers-as-young-as-17 island, and that's kind of meh. And lots of "mere millionaires" went there.
you can do drugs that normies go to prison for an it's fine
I'm pretty sure lots of people with net worth hovering around zero do drugs (meth, cocaine, opiates) without going to prison.
you can fuck up critical national infrastructure and it's fine, you have infinite money when it's time to do what you want but somehow you have no money (or negative money!) when it's time to contribute to the public good.
So is your lifetime tax bill even a mere 8 figures yet?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
8hr ago
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
8hr ago
The US government (and the Israeli government, but they don't have the capacity to help) caused this situation. It seems perfectly reasonable for the US government to alleviate it. Doing so also helps US war aims by reducing Iran's ability to harm the world economy.
If Iran doesn't have the capacity to sink tankers, the US isn't actually going to lose from this. If they do, insuring and protecting them seems like a reasonable cost of war.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10hr ago
One really big problem is that it's hard to offer men a compelling alternative to grifters like Tate, who promise a buffet of pussy, fast cars, and shiny toys.
It wouldn't be difficult if anyone with the ability to do so was interested in doing so. They are not.
Almost no women will give you a direct signal of interest unless you're extremely attractive or she's extremely keen on you, so learn the subtle ones.
The punishment for type I errors -- responding to a subtle signal when there isn't one -- has become so great that there's little opportunity to learn. If the punishment for failure is at best becoming known as "that creep" and quite possibly some sort of formal punishment, it is hard to find the boundaries. (Thus the earlier suggestion that the right thing to do if this happens is to change cities!)
Men need to initiate, that's just the way it is, but then women then have the responsibility of turning men down graciously if they're being courted in good faith. I remember being an awkward teenager and once asking a stunningly beautiful waitress for her number. She turned me down, saying something like "I have a boyfriend, but that took balls. Girls like that." It was an unambiguous but positive rejection, and didn't cost her anything.
There's nothing in it for them to do this, and in fact it does cost them. The problem the hotties have (or perceive they have) is too many approaches from uggles. Vicious shoot-downs and the prospect of formal punishment create deterrents that winnow the field in advance.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
In the US, losing 18 key people would put the entire line of succession at risk - there's no precedent for who would take over.
The House of Representatives can select a new Speaker, who then becomes President. Or the Senate can select a new President pro tempore, who then becomes President. So an adversary going to have to knock out all of both houses of Congress to prevent anyone from taking over.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Agreed, but I guess I'm not American enough to consider that "a long time".
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
That 6’4 doctor is not going to marry a woman without a college degree.
Male doctors mostly marry other doctors and other healthcare professionals, probably for reasons of availability. I'd be surprised if they cared whether their partners have a certificate, a 2 year degree, or a 4-year degree. (less surprised if they had some preference for or against other doctors)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Yeah, but that "same guy" is as MAGA as he is Jewish, I wager.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Israel and their backers did run a blood libel against white identity using the holocausts as justification.
This is more or less meaningless word salad.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
who started its existence with taking 66 Americans as hostages
Yeah, I think not enough people take this into account. Trump is old (so he remembers this personally), patriotic, and holds a grudge.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
You possibly wouldn't have as many feel-good regulations at first, but there would be numerous regulations based on the necessity for survival, plus strict enforcement and very high penalties because of the potential for catastrophe if the regs aren't followed. After a short while, power being what it is, the rulers would put in regulations for their own benefit which weren't actually backed by survival necessity, but they'd enforce as if they were. And the vast majority of people, being rule-followers by habit, would accept this and accept the crushing of objectors the same way they'd accept the crushing of those who ignored the rules on airlock safety or whatever.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Aside from simple population pressure, there is also the inherent freedom of the frontier, which will always be attractive to people who chafe under the rules and expectations of settled society, which appear to only ever increase over time.
The rules on any space colony or Mars colony are almost certain to be more confining than those of any polity the colonists are coming from, including New Jersey.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
It's all propaganda. In reality, anti-semitism in America was historically not a Red Tribe phenomenon. Anti-semitism in America wasn't pograms, it was stuff like Harvard's Jewish quotas, country clubs refusing Jews, that sort of thing. There was the Klan, who hated almost everyone, but Jews weren't their main focus. There's also black anti-Semitism and Muslim anti-Semitism -- the latter is basically imported and the former fairly recent and not Red Tribe either. Meanwhile, there's some revanchist with a Confederate flag muttering the N-word and the someone calls him an anti-Semite, and he scratches his head and says "Wasn't our Secretary of State named Judah Benjamin?"
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Despite the claims of our swastika-enjoying members, American Jews aren't a monolith. The ADL is more likely to support Hamas than MAGA no matter what, but Jared Kushner isn't the same. Nor are the Haredim, though they're a problem for other reasons. During the last election we saw a few prominent Jews peeled off the "ADL" side by the antics of universities, and possibly we'll see more of that, but I don't expect the bulk of American Jews to abandon leftism any time soon. Though if some Democrat does go full Hamas, more of them may hold their nose and vote your way in a specific election.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The basic insight of the red-pillers was that the dark triad is attractive to women and people who don't do so naturally can often exhibit or fake such traits and get success. Or, in the crude terms of a past generation: "Chicks dig jerks." And "At least some kinds of jerks. Be that kind of jerk."
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Sure, the US doesn't want to occupy. But unconditional surrender from a power capable of that (which may not exist) would lead to the more desirable condition (acquiescent self-rule) through the undesirable one.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The Fallout universe makes little sense. I expect, though, if it has an equivalent of Blue Tribe it's based in the NCR capital. The Mojave (outside the Strip proper) is obviously Red, as is the Capitol Wasteland.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Yes, Iran is playing it extremely dumb (might be because the initial attack blew their brains out). They apparently haven't shot at Turkey; perhaps they figure the Turks would try to carve off a piece of the country if they did.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Israel ethnically cleansed Gaza in 2005; Gaza is pretty much ethnically spotless. If you mean genocide, say so.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
An unconditional surrender results in formation of a government in Iran with a few extra steps -- a period of occupation, someone translates the Japanese constitution into Farsi, we find some reasonably reliable Iranians to take over. Could fail of course, but the US has done it before.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Sleeping, as Yamamoto famously noted.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The Persian diaspora, though, is heavily selected -- they're largely the urbanized, westernized, supporters of the old Shah and their descendants. The people who back the Ayatollahs and their descendants may be rather less functional and pleasant.
Supertankers are just too big for that to work. You need to get your mine closer.
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