domain:freddiedeboer.substack.com
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
5m ago
Bit of a throwback, but I'd love this to happen so much. Good call.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
20m ago
I’m not even sure it’s possible to do so
Of course it's possible. I support principled application of laws (and general principles) all the time. Just because lots of people are hypocrites doesn't mean that it's impossible to escape that, it means that they are choosing to be hypocrites.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
23m ago
Fucking GOAT'ed comment, to use the parlance of our times.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
23m ago
Literally anything would've been cleaner. Wickard v Filburn is one of the most bad faith interpretations of the law in our country's entire history. There might be worse, but there aren't a lot of them.
Yes, but if they'd admitted to being a Nazi, they wouldn't have been naturalized.
Possibly, Probably. and the HAMASniks would have likely (or at least ought to have been) denied entry if they had gone into thier naturalization hearing chanting "death to America" and "globalize the infitada".
Have you ever aligned yourself with an enemy of the United States, if so explain the circumstances. is exactly the sort of question we ought to be asking someone before letting them in.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
38m ago
On the other hand, I think it’s a crime against human dignity to throw ashes around in any place.
I think my wife would agree with you. She has flat out told me that if I go first, she's not putting my ashes in the 39 oz Folger's can (complete with blue lid!) that I have painstakingly procured for this purpose because she sees it as beneath my dignity. To which I say:
That's, just like, your opinion, man.
No_one
41m ago
Iran has everything to lose and nothing to gain by declaring nuclear capability.
Reaction to this top-level post on Iranian nukes.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
It's very possible Iran ALREADY has the weapons in their arsenal.
But the weapons are militarily and strategically useless for Iran in this particular situation.
Because every current adversary already has nuclear weapons, and more of them, and could retaliate forcefully.
Why they probably have them:
Between how much time they've had to develop them, and that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days), it's nonsensical to believe Iranians do not already have nuclear weapons or couldn't have them. Making an detonating an implosion uranium bomb is something the Chinese managed in 1963 or so. Today, with supercomputers and more mature nuclear physics knowledge out there, it's not hard at all.
The 15 bombs Iran could have if we take IAEA at their word, which if used, would result in destruction of Tehran and other major cities, could kill perhaps 300-500k Israelis. It'd not destroy the country, cause it to be overrun etc.
Iranians know that if they nuked an Israeli air-base, Israelis who have more bombs would H-bomb all of their major military sites and production facilities. They're probably working on hydrogen bombs, but have not conducted a test yet. So, there are no useful targets for these bombs at all. There's no reason to say you have something you cannot even use.
Israelis do not have the resources for a sustained campaign, so why strike them? They were going to give up their campaign sooner or later.
So, in conclusion:
Obviously, even if they had the bombs, they'd keep them secret, locked up in a bunker and work on producing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs and enough of a tunnel network to guarantee survival of a second strike capability.
Announcing that they have the bombs would
- feed Israeli narrative
- not actually provide them with the required capability to deter anyone
- cause normies in Israel/West to demand an actual end to Iranian nuclear program
the only upside would be boosting national pride.
cjet79
42m ago
Government rules are enforced through violence and kidnapping.
Libertarianism poses a simple question for any would be government bans: is the thing you are trying to ban worth killing and imprisoning people to reduce that thing?
For many libertarians there are things that definitely meet that criteria. Murder, kidnapping, serious bodily assault, etc.
They phrase it in the post as "who are you to ban that thing, why should we listen to you?" But really it is "who are you to say we get to kill people just because you think something is bad?"
There are a lot of things that are bad but less bad than killing and kidnapping people. And it sometimes feels like everyone is just playing signalling games when they say the government should ban something but can't affirmatively answer "yes it is worth killing people and imprisoning them in order to ban this thing" Meanwhile it feels like libertarians are one of the few groups acknowledging the on the ground enforcement costs of government actions.
faceh
53m ago
Tooting my own horn. December 1, 2022 I predicted:
My honest bet is that any student currently in their first year of Law School will be unable to compete with AI legal services by the time they graduate. Certainly not on cost. The AI didn't incur 5-6 figure loans for it's legal training.
Put another way, the AI will be as competent/capable as a first-year associate at a law firm inside 3 years.
This was before GPT4 was on the scene. Reiterated it 3 months ago
And then today I read this nice little headline:
Artificial Intelligence is now an A+ law student, study finds
If they can stop the damn thing from hallucinating caselaw and statutes, it might already be there.
But, let me admit, that if we don't see downward pressure on first-year wages or staffing reductions this year, I missed the meatiest part of the prediction.
There's the counter-argument that AI lawyers will actually stimulate demand for attorneys by making contracts way more complex. I don't buy it, but I see it.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
54m ago
It's amazing how much this bleeds into other genres as well.
I have a penchant for Noir/Neo-noir novels. Think The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. The story is full of anti-heroes. The whole point of the protagonist is that he's a beat-up, broke private eye who mostly lives to drink and works to support that habit. But there's still a ton of hints at his Vietnam service which gave him the skills to be a decent private eye. His skills were earned through a crucible in the jungle.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
It's entirely possible Iran ALREADY has the weapons in their arsenal.
But the weapons are militarily and strategically useless for Iran in this particular situation.
Why they probably have them:
Between how much time they've had to develop them, and that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days), it's nonsensical to believe Iranians do not already have nuclear weapons. Making an detonating an implosion uranium bomb is something the Chinese managed in 1963 or so. Today, with supercomputers it's not hard at all.
This is obvious but it's obviously not talked about because then the normies would get hysterical, even though a nuclear bomb is not particularly destructive, and even the maximum of 15 20kt bombs isn't particularly destructive either. (Israeli cities are not made out of wood nor would burn as readily as Japanese WW2 ones). Nor are so dense. If Iranians wanted to have their country H-bombed, they could gravely hurt Israel by killing ~20,000 people with each bomb, tops.
Something tells me they're not the wholly irrational frothing at the mouth fanatics we're being told the are.
But they, probably correctly, calculate that if they nuked an Israeli air-base, Israelis would H-bomb all of their major military sites and production facilities. They're probably working on hydrogen bombs, but have not conducted a test yet.
No, really, what do you think they could do with these bombs if they declared they have them?
Militarily, the only possible 'clean' target are US carrier groups. US doesn't want to invade, nor could it invade. Unless it were attempting a full scale conquest of the country, this wouldn't happen.
Israeli airbases are mostly in populated areas areas, each strike would cause collateral damage. Israelis do not have the resources for a sustained campaign, so why strike them? They're going to give up. If Iran used them on Israeli military infrastructure, their own military installations would get glassed much more thoroughly.
Obviously, even if they had the bombs, they'd keep them secret, locked up in a bunker and work on producing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs and enough of a tunnel network to guarantee survival of a second strike capability.
Announcing that they have the bombs would
- feed Israeli narrative
- not actually provide them with the required capability to deter anyone
- cause normies in Israel/West to demand an actual end to Iranian nuclear program
the only upside would be boosting national pride.
If someone told the North Koreans that having a higher GDP meant you could buy more foreign weapons, I'm sure they'd agree. In any case, I don't know how this supports your original claim that "merely shutting off aid would be catastrophic".
Plenty of other countries also get F35s, like Belgium, who don't even have Arabs to fight.
And the US would have to send troops to help them. The US doesn't do this for Israel.
Every vaguely functional Islamic country is already onside with the US (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, etc). Iran's hate for the US goes far beyond Israel. The US originally allied with Israel during the Cold War because it wasn't aligned with the USSR like most surrounding Arab states.
I'd advise you to look at those aid numbers again. They're insignificant when it comes to how wealthy the US is.
Egypt and Jordan get money to keep their governments from falling apart. Neither poses anything close to a threat to Israel. The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979, six years after the Yom Kippur war ended with Israel advancing on Cairo, because relations and with and recognition from the largest Arab state were worth way more to Israel than continuing to kill Egyptians.
I doubt it, but it doesn't matter, because the claim that Israel caused the war isn't sufficient for your argument that the US almost always prioritises Israeli foreign policy over its own.
On a scale from complete non-intervention to ground invasions in all the countries mentioned (which is probably what most Israelis would like to happen if they could chosoe), the US' historical actions in the ME are overwhelmingly closer to the isolationist side of that spectrum.
Didn't you start by saying something very close to this? I.e.
In any case:
This is statement that reasonable people can disagree on (and I do), but this is far from the original position you staked out.
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