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Goodguy  23hr ago (text post)   Edited 19hr ago   6559 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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The highest value lesson the Republicans need to learn from this election is one of the oldest ones in the book, and one that we thought they had learned after GW Bush.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

No worries there. It’s not like we’re not just as bad at diplomacy. Americans negotiate to ‘dictate’ their own views to the other side. We don’t negotiate to understand one another or to exchange ideas. When it comes to Iran, we get most of our knowledge from a handful of dissidents from the country who become paid operatives of the American political class, which fully explains why we’re so ignorant of what goes on over there and why we can’t understand how our military escapades aren’t generating the payoff we keep expecting it to.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Somehow the past couple administrations got away with a few: there were literal boots on the ground in Syria, for example, and in Iraq against ISIS after we otherwise withdrew. But for that one pilot rescue mission, that is more than we have in Iran, for example. Reagan bombed Iran (and sold them weapons under the table, it was a different time), and the Gulf War is generally considered a win.

Of course the point of the rule isn't that it bites you every time ("unless you are the Mongols"), but that it can.

Somehow the past couple administrations got away with a few

No Hormuz issue.

But they didn't! The war is being fought in the air.

that we thought they had learned after GW Bush.

You can say that again. I was losing my mind here, reading all the Iran war apologia, when it was kicking off.

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

B... but we have Google Maps now!

And we've renamed everything "America" for convenience. Gulfs, lakes, you name it.

People were saying word for word talking points from 2003.

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