domain:forecasting.substack.com
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
6m ago
Iraq didn't stay a popular war for very long, but was it a genuinely unpopular invasion at the time?
Iraq was wildly popular at the start, though the people that make excuses that no one opposed it are equally wrong. It wasn't underwater until around 2006 or so. It didn't become unpopular until it became clear that the USA was not going to be able to get anything to stick.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9m ago
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
16m ago
Look, maybe I’ve wildly misinterpreted the character of your coworker. It’s possible.
Maybe he’s a genuine stoic and competent and successful badass in a way that an internet tough guy such as myself can only dream of.
Unfortunately, I only have the anecdotes you provide, and which you are using to bolster your argument, and you don’t paint a flattering picture of him.
Having a wife is a job in itself - my coworker every day.
My recently divorced coworker begs to differ.
I've never had a single person tell me it's easier to have a wife. In fact it's the one thing I hear most guys complain about at work.
Maybe these are different guys, but I’ve never met someone who complained about one thing as often as you allege this guy complains, who wasn’t just a generally bitchy loser at life. Telling you what it looks like from outside of whatever pre-existing relationship you have with this guy is a suggestion, a blunt but fair one in my opinion, to take stock of the amount credibility you give this guy.
Because the male winners of the world are clearly finding something in marriage that is valuable enough to keep going back for it. A quick glance at the world’s 10 richest men tells me that they are all either currently married or have had multiple marriages. Larry Ellison, 80, has had 6! He clearly thinks his current 33-year old Chinese fuck doll/trophy wife is bringing something to the table that he couldn’t get from a rotating stable of prostitutes and 3 additional assistants. Even Elon, who seems most willing to break the mold, appears to pine for marriage in general and Grimes specifically.
The richest men who ever lived, wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of kings and potentates, easily able to move to Thailand or Dubai and have more concubines than Solomon, are still choosing to get married. So maybe “wife guys” are more directionally correct than your coworker, because his constant griping does not appear to bear out in reality.
Maybe to you I’m just another internet tough guy loser. That’s fair if you want to think that way! But Bezos isn’t. Shit, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un aren’t. These are guys who are still ruthlessly having their opposition beheaded or AA gun’d to death.
So maybe “wife guys” are more directionally correct than your coworker, because his constant griping does not appear to bear out in reality. Maybe he is just the male version of:
Why should the women who win at life pay heed to the women who lose? And why should anyone take the advice of the women who are by comparison losers?
Which is the same as my argument, except mine had more rude words, I guess. Although I want to reiterate; you paint a very unflattering picture of your coworker.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
18m ago
It seems weird to say that I am free to punch other people (who don’t want to be punched) any time I like since they can always get their own back by slugging me in return.
But I didn't say that it was ok, just that it was different; sticking with your metaphor, there's a big difference between my punching someone who could realistically punch me back, and me punching someone who realistically could not. If I punch another large adult male who could punch me back, it's categorically less bad than if I punch a woman, child, weakling, etc. Escalating a conflict physically when I have escalation dominance is unacceptable, escalating a conflict physically when I do not may fall under acceptable mischief.
I've actually been thinking about this same kind of thing, and these kinds of social settings tend to have lower restrictions when you blend in, precisely out of a sense that you have as much to offer those around you as they have to offer you.
it_is_so_weird_to_be
23m ago
It's interesting because eating food "just for the taste" is in a way affirming the evolutionary reason. Our taste buds evolved for a reason. Just because we've figured out how to make some tasty foods that lack nutrition doesn't mean we like to eat doritos despite our evolution. Our bodies literally think we are getting nutrition when we seek that out.
Likewise, a woman painting her face and dressing scantily may tell herself it's for her own confidence or whatever. But it doesn't refute that she's doing it for male attention and reproductive success. I think the audience discussion is a bit of a red herring, although there are some interesting points to be made there.
So! There's a tiny chance I'll be booted out of the US because 5 decades ago my parents were illegal immigrants and the SCOTUS might agree they were foreign invaders.
Meanwhile, right-wing nativist Chuds in my parents' country have decided they think bloodline-based citizenship is the actual menace and are taking steps towards ending it.
I don't really want to live in the old country, but to add insult to injury it's narrowly possible I'll lose residency in the US while my kids lose residency in the old country and navigating that sounds really unpleasant.
This is really speculative of course. But for peace of mind, are there any decent countries that I can buy a citizenship in? Either cash money or via "investment"? The obvious contenders like Cyprus and Portugal seem to have scaled back the enticements recently.
iprayiam3
28m ago
Right which is why she can’t criticize it on that front. So the present moral distaste is transferred onto something else
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
29m ago
Homies: Ride or Die
FINALLY got most major issues with car solved. Switched to PBR ("physically based rendering") from old school Phong-style. Really took this to the next level (pic attached).
Also the wheels now spin properly, the lighting and normal maps stay consistent, I can even select the brake callipers and steer them along with the the front wheels.
The problem the entire time is seemingly that the obj/mtl data files were garbage, and I lost several weeks worth of time using those. I cannot believe how consequential stupid shit like choice of file format is. I'm sure there are dev teams that have wasted millions of dollars from this one decision.
Anyway! I'm told the next thing I want to do is add environment mapping (having the skydome, etc reflect off the car) to really make it pop.
TRON bike lighting
Finally getting back to this. The parts arrived for the $4 PC case fan and charcoal filter and I made myself a fume extractor that impressed my daughter.
IsItPleasing
43m ago
Maybe for some women. I can tell you for a fact that my wife dresses up nice for the same reason she cleans and decorates our house even when nobody is coming around. She likes pretty things and wants to be one of them. From my experience this is pretty common for women.
Pretending it's all about attracting men is not just reductive, it's simply false in many cases.
ABigGuy4U
45m ago
9/11 is one of the reasons the dissident Republican groups never went anywhere, because of all the new, much more comprehensive terrorist financing laws.
VIM
48m ago
I feel like this analysis basically requires that you unquestioningly believe every claim the Israelis made while ignoring key pieces of evidence that contradict said claims, for example:
- Nearly all of the big achievements (eg. the decapitation strikes) occurred at the very beginning of the war, the opposite of what one would expect if Iran's air defenses were truly crippled
- Nearly all of the strikes were performed with Mossad drones or with air-to-ground missiles rather than bombs, a sign that the IAF didn't feel like they could just freely fly over Tehran dropping bombs
- Israel's interception rate fell calamitously in a relatively short period, going from 95% on day 1 to around 50% by day 12
Despite the dire threats coming from Katz, Israel has yet to actually try restarting combat. You'll notice that they don't feel the need to bark when talking about bombing Syria or Gaza, they just do it. There are really only two explanations: restraint imposed by Trump or fear imposed by Iran's missiles. What this war has really demonstrated is that Israel can't handle Iran alone, even with basically unlimited NATO and Arab backup on defense. It simply doesn't have the strategic depth to handle regular hits on essential targets every single day; to win, total, unconditional and most importantly indefinite American offensive support would be necessary. Though if the Houthis are of any indication, even that might be insufficient.
As to the fate of the Iranian regime, frankly it's probably in the strongest position it's been in decades. By all accounts the internal division around fighting Israel was resolved instantly by the sneak attack and discredited the Shah supporters just like how supporting Saddam discredited the MEK back in the 80s. The advocates of negotiating with the US look like chumps and the hardliners who proposed building ballistic missile cities carved into mountains look like brilliant strategists. I suppose the IRGC warrior caste might increase it's power relative to the clerical caste but if anything the IRGC are more interested in nuclear weapons than Khamenei and the religious authorities ever were.
At this point if Iran wanted a nuclear weapon there's very little Trump or Israel could do to stop them, though making a weapon that could actually be plausibly useful ie. one that could be put on a warhead would take considerably longer and would be very difficult to hide the development of. Ironically the one thing that could prevent this would be Russia and China, neither of whom have an interest in Iran going nuclear, offering some sort of protection in exchange for some degree of oversight.
ABigGuy4U
49m ago
Iran's irrational hatred of Israel is not rooted in history or geopolitical sense
Yes it is. Israel and Iran are the two most militarily powerful countries in the Middle East. If Iran or Israel disappeared overnight, the other would be in an excellent position to dictate terms to the weaker Arab states. Whoever survives is the major regional power for the next 300 years (barring Turkey). You’ll notice that while Israel and Iran had a few scuffles through the 80s, the knives really started to come out after Saddam Hussein fell and Syria collapsed. Iraq (and the threat of a Ba’athist axis) being the main third player for regional power.
Iranians would benefit tremendously if their insane leaders were overthrown and a sensible government aligned itself with the US.
That’s how we ended up in this mess in the first place!
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
53m ago
Conor McGregor can be filmed heading off with an outright fatty to presumably bang or at least fool around
That makes sense to me. If theres a woman right in front of you that you can have consequence-free sex with, and your reaction is to go find a different one, I suspect thats mostly been selected against. It would be too rare to have multiple such options to have a specific reaction for it.
As for Zuckerberg at all, keep in mind that a rich guy that you know for being rich had many opportunities to sell it all and have more money than a hedonist could ever need, and he made it to the point where you know him because he didnt take those. There could well be large numbers who update however you think they should, that you just dont see. Actually, Im curious how you think they should, since you say that prostitues are bad also?
hydroacetylene
54m ago
Iran's government might be incompetent, but again, I don't understand what's uncivilized about it?
Iraq didn't stay a popular war for very long, but was it a genuinely unpopular invasion at the time? My impression is that when everyone thought the Iraqis would take to democracy easily once their evil tyrant(and that is what Saddam was) was replaced it was a generally-approved of war domestically, and it only became super unpopular when it became clear that the Iraqis would prefer armed nuts to democracy.
That discussion of Bush also reminds me a lot of Trump. He's clearly leading on vibes, not ideology or policy briefs. They're different vibes but they're vibes nonetheless.
The war was always unpopular with the left, though at the time even anti-war activists would do a lot of throat clearing about how evil Saddam was. It was very popular with the right, who mostly, as you say, thought removing Saddam would turn Iraqis into democracy-lovers. (Remember all those photos of Iraqis proudly showing off their purple fingers?)
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