domain:cafeamericainmag.com
faceh
1d ago
Football is really interesting on the play-to-play strategic level. Its absolutely the most 'war-like' of the sports out there.
But the sport is also so heavily optimized its like there's no room for anything but like two workable strategies. Team composition doesn't change much. And if your QB sucks then you're probably not going very far.
And while I enjoy MMA, its exactly like you said. IN the cage, there's no team. Sure they're off to the side coaching, but its not quite as beautiful as watching the coordinated ice ballet playing out at high speed.
Actually, that is one 'con' with hockey. Plays happen so goddamn fast that you can't realize how much just happened until its over.
Hockey teams can't rely solely on one strong player like sometimes happens in baskebtall, but you can optimize your team's skill stack in a few different ways for success.
We saw that with the last two Cup finals, Florida fielding a team with tons of grit and a deep roster of talent, Edmonton with some elite scoring talent that can skate circles around everyone, and each side trying to find the best matchups for its lines. Florida seems to have perfected the science of shutting down McDrai by game 3.
I don't just watch for the fights, to be clear, but the fact that fights are an integral part of the sport does elevate it.
Its hard to explain, snobs might say that its just ungenteel and not sportsmanlike, making hockey a 'low class' sport, but I have to agree, the fact that on-ice disputes can be settled by dropping gloves then and there absolutely elevates the sport. Trash talk is cheap. For the low, low price of five minutes in time-out, you can check a dude's ego or remind them to stop messing with the goalie, keeping some of the 'unwritten' rules of the sport intact.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
While I'm much less white-identitarian than most people on here, it's entirely possible that among the specific set of 'young blue tribers who never leave the ivory tower bubble of academia' the position really does boil down to 'white people have no right to exist'. As it applies to the USA this is basically a luxury belief- the serious antiwhite racists are mostly a subset of AADOS(+a few natives) who are begrudgingly tolerated by their coethnics. In Israel, on the other hand...
sun_the_second
1d ago
I'd much prefer being told there is something wrong with me and that the game is rigged against me in the sense that I'm somehow inherently inept or dysgenic, than be told to
On the internet, people can't tell you're unfixably socially retarded over one (or zero) posts.
thejdizzler
1d ago
This is a huge W for Israel. And frankly a necessary W for the country. If my generation continues to hold the politics that they hold now as they age, Israel is stuffed in about 20 years. They need to win these wars now, and make peace with the people that they are able to now, or they won't survive when the blue-hairs start being elected to the senate.
I'm not sure I really understand why so many zoomers are so rabidly pro-Palestine. I get being against what is happening in Gaza, but so many people seem to be completely ignorant of the history of conflict, perhaps willfully so. I used to enjoy going on /r/stupidpol, but that place has become as cesspit of pro-Hamas propaganda. Even if you think the state of Israeli was a Western colonialist project (debatable at best), the fact is there are 9 million Jews living there now. If Hamas/other Arab nations get their way, those 9 million Jews will either be all dead or displaced. How is that any better than what they think is happening in Gaza and the West Bank? Part of me hopes that most of my generation isn't really thinking about things that way, but based on reactions in my graduate department to 10/7 (immediate pro-Palestine protests despite the fact that ISRAEL was attacked), make me think that a lot of my generation actually just wants Israel gone. Which makes me pretty sad.
I lived in Israel in 2019, and as far as I could see, it was a country that would be worth preserving. The public infrastructure was functional, vast amounts of food are grown on relatively small amounts of land, and best of all the people there actually seemed to believe in something greater than themselves. I spent a bit of time in the north where most of the 1 million Arab citizens live (and also more time in Jerusalem where non-citizen Arabs are), and while they had complaints about their economic situation/racism from Ashkenazi Jews, it seemed like their lives were far far better than their relatives in the West Bank or even in other Arab countries. Heck in Jerusalem there were Israeli soldiers guarding the entrance to the upper temple complex to make sure I didn't go up there as a non-muslim. Would a Palestinian government grant the same kind of protection to a disenfranchised Jewish minority? For some reason, I doubt it.
I'm definitely much more liberal than a lot of people here, but this is one thing I just cannot stomach from my own tribe. It would be one thing if we just disagreed in the abstract, but most organizations on the left seemed to be obsessed with tying support for Palestine for everything. My grad union for example wants to send union dues to Palestine and to bargain to try and get Hopkins to divest from Israeli companies. I didn't fucking sign up for this shit when I signed my union card.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
The US people will never be allowed to vote on immigration
What do you think he got elected for this time, looking sexy in swimming trunks? I think stopping illegal immigration, deporting illegals and so on was the number one issue with his voters, and so far he is making a good show of this actually being a priority for him.
--
Other than that, I can only advise you to give that system called "proportional representation" a try. It will allow multiple parties to compete. Sometimes, you will have an issue where (n-1) parties are leaning towards one side, but one party canvases with being on the other side and wins big in one election. Often, this will cause the other parties to flip.
Sadly, this often happens with opinions which I do not share. For example, a single state victory of the green party after Fukoshima was enough to kill nuclear power. More recently, the anti-immigrant AfD has won big in the federal elections. While they are not yet in power, Merz has taken to personally drown a migrant child in the Mediterranean sea each morning before breakfast the CDU/CSU/SPD coalition is basically trying to enact the AfD program, as far as migrants are concerned.
ulyssessword
1d ago
I thought it was a good effort at introducing something that may not have otherwise been discussed
I mentioned it downthread, but I literally don't know what the point was. Since you saw something interesting here, could you explain it?
FD4280
1d ago
Dungeon Crawler Carl, on the third book. It’s decently fun after the disappointing “The Devils” from Abercrombie.
The latter was not that bad, by the way. I just have to accept that Abercrombie will never reach the level of his first five books again.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
I can't possibly answer that question. You might want to ask the woman herself. I just don't think one should accuse people of hypocrisy without evidence, even (as in this case) people I don't like.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
I don't think any president wants to have to make the call of "Hey, this country just nuked a non-Nato country and wiped them off the map. Do we... respond?"
You don't want to set the precedent that there's no response or a limited one, and you also don't want to be the one who gets dragged into a nuclear/heavy-handed military response that has to try to force regime change.
In MMA News: Jon Jones finally retired, now that his attempts to hold on to the belt without fighting the interim champ Aspinall failed. Apparently he asked for a ridiculous payday, got it (which is a miracle in and of itself) and then promptly changed his mind. In the perfect capper for anyone who knows anything about Jon Jones, he had another hit and run right before announcing retirement. In terms of objectively successful prospects who nevertheless blew it by being incapable of staying out of trouble he's up there.
Good news: the division can finally move and Aspinall can actually have a career as champ. Bad news: the UFC is now functionally boxing with its own Joshua/Wilder HW mess despite not having any rival promotions and apparently Jon Jones is trapped in a time loop.
Hope they book Aspinall's next fight ASAP.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
I hate to use the cop-out, but it's so obvious here;
Physical beauty is inherent and always subjective, no? A higher level of body fat, for instance, has objective downsides compared to being within a more normal range, but there are people, both male and female, who viscerally and immutably prefer it. So, even if a full head of hair is objectively a better marker of virility, vitality etc. it can also be subjectively worse. And the whole genesis of this thread was obviously around female sexual interest (or lack thereof) in balding or bald men.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1d ago
Isn't one of America's political platforms to go to war with Iran?
Can you point to the platform of any party or politician that says "Go to war with Iran"?
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I'm surprised how much political capital he was willing to spend on this.
I don't actually think a few airstrikes on Iran are worth that much political capital.
Trump was never a dove, and MAGA was never pacifist or pro-Iranian. At most, hit platform was a bit isolationist, but more in a "us playing world police is a bad deal" than "let us downsize our military to what we would reasonably require to defend our country" way.
Assassinating a few enemies or weddings with drone strikes or dropping a few bombs on countries your constituents could not find on a map is very in character for any president.
I mean, sure, if he announced that he was invading Iran, his base might get deja-vu, but if he spends a smallish fraction of the defense budget on personal pet projects like military parades or bombing Iran, I doubt any of his voters will care much.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1d ago
Yes, everybody here does know my views because I don't hide them. The accusation that I secretly want all the Jews killed just because I give cultural criticism towards Jews in a similar nature as Jews like Ignatiev constantly levy against whites is simply your attempt to enforce a social consensus making any criticism of Jews taboo.
But you do hide your views. For example, once again you are carefully tap dancing around the question of whether you do in fact want all the Jews killed.
No one is "yelling hysterically" - we are, rather, noticing, you might say.
Now if I pinned you down and sat on your chest, I am guessing (but this is only a guess ) that your actual preferred solution would be something like disenfranchising Jews, denying them the right to vote or own property in non-Jewish lands, and shipping them all off to Madagascar or somewhere where "Jewish lands" could constitute an impoverished third world incapable of affecting anyone else. So maybe not literally exterminating the Jewish race, just treating them like an invasive species that must be banished elsewhere.
Am I warm?
But you won't even concede that much openly because, you know, it doesn't sound a lot better than just being an outright exterminationist. One way or another, your solution amounts to "Jews cannot coexist with us or be given rights." That sounds pretty bad to the, well, non-Neo Nazi ear, so you waffle on with lots of words about "enforced consensus" and how you don't hide the views you won't admit to. And so you will continue to complain when I point out your intrinsic unwillingness to stop hiding your power level, and I will continue to point out your intrinsic unwillingness to stop hiding your power level.
hanikrummihundursvin
1d ago
Isn't one of America's political platforms to go to war with Iran? Seems like a good reason for Iran to get a nuke...
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
A nuke detonated anywhere on earth would kill millions.
Certainly not. Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed maybe a quarter-million. Bigger bombs' damage doesn't linearly scale with kilotonnage (which is one reason many small bombs became more fashionable). Tel Aviv and Haifa together have less than a million people, and while nukes are big, nothing Iran would be likely to build could wipe out an entire metro area.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1d ago
That’s too anonymous; I’m opening myself to embarrassment if I’m wrong.
HereAndGone
1d ago
And maybe it’ll wind up being suitably specious cannon fodder in this or that culture war, as a treat.
That's the problem at this particular moment; the latest nutjob is not just agreed to be a nutjob, he has to have a secret agenda which will demonstrate that he is One Of Them and that naturally it is Their Fault for encouraging such people with their inflammatory rhetoric. We got it with Sarah Palin and a target map, we got it with the Pulse nightclub shooter, we're getting it with every shooting since (of course that person was influenced by party A or party B to do this, there is a direct political line so we can make hay by blaming our political rivals!) That's why Walz was straight out of the gate with "this is a politically motivated assassination" instead of shutting up until there was more information, or just saying something about mentally ill individuals having access to guns.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
Turkey is NATO, we are contractually obliged to aid them when they come under attack, which is commonly understood to involve turning Tehran into a parking lot if the ayatollah foolishly attacks them with a nuke.
My problem with Iran is that I do not have a good model of just how nutty they are, really. I would model their close ally Hamas as being willing to sacrifice every soul in Gaza to kill a few 10k or 100k Jews. Presumably they are less crazy than that. It is of course much more convenient if the kids of their allies are bombed in retaliation, and the ayatollah certainly did not have a problem aiding with actions which would predictably result in a lot of Gazans killed.
I mean, if Iran's version of Islam considers any Muslim bombed by unbelievers to be a martyr who will go straight to heaven, then getting their cities nuked is what an utility maximizer would do. Then again, their past behavior indicates that they care a lot about maintaining power, and not so much about sending their population to heaven in the quickest possible way.
orangecat
1d ago
Isn't one of their political platforms death to America?
I think that's a good reason to stop them from having a nuclear bomb.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
No, if Iran with a nuke is dangerous, letting them have it because you don’t want to lose a midterm is short sighted. A nuke detonated anywhere on earth would kill millions. That would certainly be worse than losing a midterm. Especially if that nuke hits an American or allied city, an American military base, or some high value target in the Middle East.
Israel is Israel and they’re frankly not part of my analysis here. If Israel didn’t exist, I think the history of Islamic radicalism would make an Islamic nuke a danger to world stability. A religion that says those who kill for God with a weapon that can obliterate a city is not something that would improve my insomnia.
No, it's sound. Any logically correct argument against "immigration" needs to be robust under switching the word "immigrant" with the word "native" or "human". It has nothing to do with morals, it's about the logical structure of the argument. Any argument of the form "More immigrants is bad because of X" that also generalizes to "More people is bad because of X" cannot be an argument against immigrants — it's an argument against people, including natives.
In order to be a genuine argument against "immigration", the structure of the argument must rely on a material distinguishing characteristic between "immigrant" and "native". That's where the culture argument has some merit, but the first two do not. "Is not a citizen of the country" is not a material distinction.
More options
Context Copy link