domain:alakasa.substack.com
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
4hr ago
I can agree that the continued fireworks past midnight does get mildly annoying, but it is absolutely nothing compared to the year-round barking these dog owners inflict.
This is a crazy take. Fireworks (the mortar kind, which is what people around here do despite them being illegal) are an order of magnitude louder than dogs. Even if your neighbor's dog is barking a lot, barking utterly pales in comparison to fireworks in terms of how disruptive it is due to the massive difference in volume. It's made even worse by the fact that people choose to set off fireworks. At least a dog is an independent creature you can't control, but the fireworks people are deliberately choosing to be assholes disrupting their neighbors. Here people were setting off fireworks until 2 am! Fucking 2 am! Not only that, but people here start setting off fireworks 3-4 weeks before July 4, and continue for 3-4 weeks after, so it's not like it is just one night of this nonsense.
I would've had some sympathy for your argument if you just claimed that the two were equivalently disruptive. But claiming that fireworks are "absolutely nothing" in comparison to dogs barking is not the remotest bit reasonable. And it's not like most people have dogs that bark all the time anyways - I have had one neighbor, in my 40 years on this earth, that had such a dog. And yeah it's annoying. Perhaps one might even say those people are irresponsible and shouldn't own a dog. But they are the minority. Are you really trying to argue that fireworks are just desserts when they punish not only the irresponsible, but also the responsible owners and those who don't even have dogs? Because that would be completely disproportionate.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6hr ago
Contrary to what @George_E_Hale said, this isn't an odd moment of bluntness for you, it's something you've been warned about before.
Drop this "this is just the way I talk" gimmick. You can say "Blacks aren't smart, but Jews and Chinese are," but phrasing it the way you did just reeks of "I'm an edgy ironic racist, hee hee hee." We've told you this already: being racist isn't prohibited, but you have to figure out how to spray your spittle in a polite manner, and if you find that difficult, that's intentional.
Barfknuckle
19hr ago
I'll just STFU rather than sit here doing a stupid monkey dance actually explaining how a federal agency is different than a Roman legion, thanks. I forgot the rules forbid not talking like an autistic alien.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21hr ago
There’s nothing wrong with saying that you find a comparison ludicrous, but we ask that you leverage a more substantial complaint than “TDS.”
vorpa-glavo
3hr ago
I mean, I think we've already created a society where humans aren't "from top to bottom" racist.
Humans will always be tribal, but I think that different circumstances can turn the dial of how much that tribalism affects their behavior in practice. Having a food-rich, water-rich society is a great starting point for interracial harmony. Adding men with guns forcing people not to act racist, and a set of societal institutions that are designed to brainwash people to be even less racist, and I think you've got the "best" possible form of sanding that bit of human nature off.
You can't change human tribalism, but you can make it less salient depending on how you constitute society.
anti_dan
17hr ago
The "concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation" portion is what Democrat activists are afraid of, because many, if not most, of said people failed to list "material support of Hamas" on their applications, which many/most have done.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
18hr ago
Have not doesn't mean they will not.
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
In the Tulsa area? Connected to St. Mary’s up in Kansas, I presume?
Clear Creek Monastery(https://infogalactic.com/info/Clear_Creek_Abbey). No official connection; it's a daughterhouse of Fontgombault which isn't technically affiliated with apostolic work.
My words are chosen carefully and not subject to elaboration.
ThisIsSin
Cainanites and Abelists
22hr ago
Couldn't your conclusion that 'If Hamas manages to get an attack off it's the entire host nations problem as well' apply to Iran giving them a nuke in the first place?
No, because Iran is the only one capable of retaliating (in a nuclear fashion) hard enough to discourage that. And Israel doesn't need to go nuclear if this happens; a conventional war would be just as destructive for these nations and peoples. Perhaps that is part of why the neighboring countries are unwilling to host the Hamasi as refugees.
Couldn't Israel just state preemptively they will regard any use of nukes by hamas as use by Iran
Maybe, but I don't think Israel can win a war with Iran (hence the emphasis on keeping them down/contained). They're sufficiently equipped to wreck any country Iran allies with outside of that lovely mountain range that defines the western Iranian border, but unless the Americans want to put their boots on the ground and suffer the 3:1 attacker casualty rates to conquer Iran then Israel can't really touch them. Israel doesn't have those numbers, Iran's a peer nation (except for the nuclear weapons), and if either tries in the future are the Israel-hating Blues (and even Reds; Israeli influence might not be as stable in an era of Red reforms) even going to lift a finger?
Remember, the ultimate problem Israel is fighting is that, absent Rome/Europe/Washington and its religious fixation on holding Jerusalem, it is the natural geopolitical state of Judea to be in the Persian orbit. Hence the rhyme with Biblical times- Jews evict the Canaanites, then the Persians conquer the Jews.
wayfarer
2hr ago
that has no arms production
this is simply a blatant lie or reveals you have zero knowledge of situation
Ukraine in fact produces weapons. Ranging from "lets zip grenade to civilian drone" through various boring but crucial stuff like ammo and ending on robots, drones and long-range missiles.
And some funky stuff, like what recently took out multiple Russian bombers in long range attacks. No matter how you call it, things that result in multiple burning bombers are weapons and AFAIK these special containers are neither produced by NATO nor orderable on Temu or provided to them by Mossad.
Have you really missed naval remote-controlled boats that resulted in Russia losing naval war to navy that has no active traditional surface vessels?
Please stop commenting on things where you lack basic knowledge. Or, if you are at al qualified in this area: please stop lying and trying to be propaganda repeater. At least find better propaganda materials or learn to add qualifiers so your claims are not obvious lies.
vorpa-glavo
4hr ago
After my reading on Renaissance humanism, I don't really think of the thing that makes our society work (to the extent that it does) as a "democracy", but as an attempt at an Aristotlean "politeia" or constitutional republic.
Many parts of this are tangled up in a system that also sells itself on everyone having a voice (the modern meaning of "democracy"), but I think the lynchpins that make things work are the fact that we brainwash most of the populace for 13 years via public schools and the media, and that we received the individualist-trending practices of Christian Europe (nuclear family, incest taboo, etc.)
It also doesn't hurt that we're the wealthiest, most technologically advanced and highest state capacity nation in history. Even if parts of your system rely on sanding off the rough edges of human nature, where you fail to do that, it is a nice consolation prize to have a system where almost no one is starving, dying of thirst, etc. People don't want to rebel against rulers that keep them materially comfortable, even if they can feel the friction of the society rubbing against their human instincts.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
19hr ago
Low performers are irrelevant, it's high performers that are dangerous. Who is more dangerous as a grudgebearer - Joshua VerbalIQbaum or Mgubu the Witless? Likewise it's not unreasonable for Chang, Zheng and much of the Maths Olympiad phenotype to hold a grudge for their treatment in the 19th and early 20th century. You can always ignore Mgubu, he has no armoured brigades or advanced rhetoric.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
As opposed to 'Mgubu the witless'?
Aside from the parallelism in 'people of small hats/people of slanted eyes' it doesn't seem offensive in isolation either.
vorpa-glavo
2hr ago
Because, I don't think most traditional libertarians support the "men with guns forcing people not to act racist" part of the equation, and I think that is a central part of how the idealized form of modern American politics actually works in practice.
I still call myself a "state capacity libertarian" or "liberaltarian" because I want the lightest touch version of this in practice. I'm fuzzy on it, but I think I'd limit it to, say, public schools, employment, banking, and housing. Men with guns can force people to not discriminate in those domains, and then we can leave the people free to discriminate everywhere else in society.
I'm pretty sure that the forced integration of hospitals, hotels, gas stations and public schools that happened at gunpoint in the United States is the only realistic way that could have happened. I'm open to being proven wrong on this point. I would love to be pointed to real world historical examples of oppressed, othered minorities being successfully integrated into wider society without the state forcing the issue.
Also, I think the problem of petty tyrants is not limited to racism. It is just one of the easiest to describe examples. I think even something as simple as, "I'm the black sheep of my family, and the pariah of this small town" can be a case where petty tyranny makes living a happy, fulfilling life difficult. The anonymity of a corporation like McDonald's or Walmart makes us "exile-proof." Even if I reach my lowest point, if I become the most socially hated and cancelled person, the wonderful thing about Capitalist Liberalism is that it shapes us into interchangeable cogs, and I can still get a job at McDonald's or Walmart, and become a part of the background radiation of other people's lives.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
4hr ago
I'm neither a veteran nor a dog owner, but I think we need to do something about fireworks because of the usual reason - jerks are ruining it for everyone. I would be perfectly okay with fireworks on July 4, stopping at a reasonable hour (say 10-11 pm) so as not to disturb those trying to sleep. Instead what we get is about 2 months of fireworks on either side of the holiday, frequently going past midnight.
I honestly don't know what to do - normally you might say "make it illegal", but the mortar fireworks are illegal in this state already. But since people can drive 4 hours to Wyoming to get fireworks there, the law doesn't accomplish anything. It's a shame, because I actually love fireworks and it would be really cool to have them in the neighborhood if people were responsible. And to be fair most people are. But as usual, the irresponsible minority is causing problems for everyone.
anti_dan
17hr ago
My preferred solution would be a statute of limitations; maybe 3 years for ordinary stuff, 7 years for really bad stuff.
This is the sort of gamification that just encourages the evil doers. 7 Years is already plenty of time to spread around a few anchor babies so the judge will look favorably on you and maybe violate black letter law in your favor.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
18hr ago
No that is not the lesson, there is nothing to fear from a "low performer". What you need to fear is the person or group who you dismissed as low performing but have the potential to not be, because if you fuck em there is a good chance they'll fuck you back and you will deserve it.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
20hr ago
It's fine to just liberate Chinamen or Ashkenazim
Looking at the current geopolitical situation, there may have been other downsides.
iprayiam3
58m ago
stopping at a reasonable hour (say 10-11 pm) so as not to disturb those trying to sleep. 10pm?! This gets you less than an hour of darkness where I live.
On July 4th itself, we should at least induldge till 2:00am., with maybe till midnight on the day before, through the next closest weekend.
wayfarer
1hr ago
"has no arms production" is distinctly different from "has arms production not relying at all on imported components"
"has no arms production" is distinctly different from "has no large scale industry" (which was not true either last time I checked)
You claimed "has no arms production" which is simply a misleading mendacious lie that you put there on assumptions that people reading it are idiots that will believe you.
wayfarer
2hr ago
the equptment is NATO
Ukraine mostly fights with USSR leftovers and NATO spares. And unwilling Russian donations are in many areas comparable to what NATO supplied.
They are fighting an enemy in which every operation is run by NATO,
drop "every" absurdity and we can start to talk
thousands of NATO mercs are running things on the ground.
really? really?
They have effectively beaten NATO in a conventional land war.
They have problem beating one of the most corrupt and poorest countries in Europe. Yes, Ukraine has small-scale help from NATO countries that gave in the same comparable amount of money to Russia via energy supplies payment and some equipment, but nowhere at scale that should have been done.
If we would have Russia vs NATO in conventional land war, they would be stomped.
If you look for more balanced matchmaking, go for Russia vs Ukraine and Poland. Given how close Ukraine vs Russia is, that should have been far more hilarious.
Oh, I'm aware that what I want is essentially imperialism.
I've struggled with how to think about this.
I think that America's individualism and liberalism are highly unnatural and bad fits for human nature. That's why we had to have the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation in human history, brainwash most of the nation for 13 years via school and media, cultivate a culture of ripping families apart through an expectation of moving out of your parents' house, and impose a taboo on cousin marriage to make it all work.
This is my difficulty. Once we've done all that. Once we've inculcated individualism and little L "liberalism" in the population, then it seems like you can have a form of federalism (AKA imperialism) that is compatible with a form of libertarianism (AKA doing what you want outside of what you're being forced to do via imperialism.)
But I do understand that the basic counter argument is that maybe we shouldn't strip people of the non-liberal parts of their cultures. Maybe we shouldn't impose an incest taboo, encourage the degraded form of the extended family we call "the nuclear family", and do all the other things that make the form of life we have in America possible.
I genuinely don't have a good answer for this. Individualism and little-L liberalism are the only way of life I know. I'm the child of two parents who both moved to different states than my grandparents, and I now live in a different city than my parents.
I've never known a collectivist society. I've never known a tightly knit small town community. I'm mostly happy, and a foolish part of me honestly believes we're a few reforms away from making this bizarre system of ours work with the 2 million year old hardware humankind is running on. But maybe the neo-reactionary and post-liberal right are correct, and it was all a doomed experiment from the start.
ABigGuy4U
6hr ago
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
14hr ago
people of slanted eyes are too.
Are smart enough? I'm parsing your sentence but the general tone seems dismissive, whereas this seems complementary. The slant eyes bit is an odd moment of bluntness for you.
Mgubu isn't smart enough to recognize when he's gotten the better deal. People of small hats mostly are, and for all of chairman Xi's attempts at becoming grand Chinaman of the race, people of slanted eyes are too.
More options
Context Copy link