domain:inv.nadeko.net
No_one
43m ago
Enforcing borders is not at all arbitrary as that famous wolfpack range map shows. It's as arbitrary as childbirth.
mrtheforce
47m ago
1: Yes
2: Yes
3: No
4: Yes with qualification
5: Yes
6: Yes
No_one
47m ago
Yes, it would. It takes a gigantic amount of shells and a lot of time to level a city.
Several H bomb blasts would accomplish the same at a fraction of a cost.
No_one
51m ago
IAEA said they're days away from having 300 kg of weapons grade material, enough for a dozen nukes.(How they found out? Spooks? Or is it a lie)
Technologically not that stupid Iran stan was saying they already have a compact implosion design, and that the clandestine nature of their program and constraints(bunkers)have made Iran some of the develop world's best centrifuges.
If you're making plutonium byproducts leak and are detected, but you can do isotopic separation on uranium all you want and it's going to be hard to tell.
No_one
57m ago
It's quite possible clear the sites are deeper.
Back in the GWB II era neocons American like Cheney were obsessed with hydrogen bomb bunker busters and talking loudly how such strikes are clean bc the radiation is mostly contained. Which is kind of true.
satanistgoblin
1hr ago
Jordan was just helping defend Israel against Iranian drones. Saudis are doing jack shit to fight Israel and made it illegal to criticise prince Bonesaw in that regard. Arabs are mostly Quislings, actually.
To be honest you should probably stop, then, and this isn't meant in an antagonistic way; rather it's an acknowledgement of the practical futility of such an exercise. The idea that you ever end up changing anything by participating in forums like this one is laughable. Even if you somehow do manage to convert everyone here to your point of view the overall effect of such a thing would be hilariously tiny, tantamount to a drop in the bucket. You would have spent countless hours to ultimately achieve nothing.
People participate here because they feel like they get something out of it aside from trying to right the political ship, something this forum explicitly isn't meant for. They feel like hashing things out with other people that have a shared ethos of discourse helps them clarify and sharpen their own thought, even if there is no agreement between the parties (yes you can cherry-pick comments that aren’t high effort, the fact remains the standard of discourse here is far above average). If you don't get that out of it, then I genuinely think it would be better if you left.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
As soon as you see a "lane ends ahead" sign you should be trying to get over. Don't ride to the very end and then expect to squeeze in.
I pity the fool who has never experienced the sublime beauty of the zipper merge.
This is so 2010's.
Look, I used to care about these periodic flameout posts, and I used to try to come up with solutions that would make hanging out here a little more enjoyable. I never got much of a response, and when I did it was usually in the form of this womanly exasperation that I haven't yet singlehandedly solved the problem yet.
On top of that, I am yet to here of a single space that gives half as much of a hoot about how rightwingers are comfortable there, as this place cares for the comfort of leftwingers, so it's hard to believe there's something uniquely wrong with this place.
What's the point? A better question is, how come you expect people to drop everything, and try to find one for you?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Also very funny to see any pretense of "rationalism" or truth-seeking completely fly out the window to be replaced by personal anecdotes and confirmation bias.
Point of order: all rationalism is, is exactly that under a few layers of misdirection. Abandoning it is the good and honest thing to do.
functor
2hr ago
Rather, the people in the west are generally negative to Israel. Even Americans are net negative to Israel. Western politicians go against the will of the people and cuck endlessly to Israel regardless of what Israel does because of Israel's extreme influence. This becomes a problem when the voters are not onboard, yet they have to officially worship Likud.
2rafa
2hr ago
Revolutionary Iran by Axworthy only covers to 2012 but is probably the best introduction (meant only loosely, it’s relatively comprehensive unless you’re fascinated by a particular area of the Iranian state) to modern post-revolutionary Iranian history and the ideology of the revolutionaries before and in government. It shows quite meticulously how Khomeini strategically and patiently exploited just about every single cultural, class, political and ethnic division in Iranian politics to grant himself a level of absolute power rare even in the most autocratic traditional Islamic societies and then set about building an elaborate political operation and pipeline that sidelined even many of his own allied clerics (including many hardline Islamists) to ensure that the state he created would be extremely difficult to dismantle from within, even though he knew it would always be unpopular with Iran’s large, secular, urban PMC and wider middle class.
SkoomaDentist
2hr ago
How on earth is always using a turn signal "totally useless and actively harmful"?
comfortable
3hr ago
As soon as you see a "lane ends ahead" sign you should be trying to get over. Don't ride to the very end and then expect to squeeze in.
Eh, if the lane ends with a forced merge into the lane beside it, waiting until the end gives a predictable time and place that the merge will occur. In times of heavy traffic, it also maximizes road usage (and if you don't drive until the end, someone else behind you will, so you might as well). If the lane ends with, for example, a forced turn off the highway, then I agree. I especially agree in times of heavy traffic. Don't make the people who actually want to use that turn off the highway wait because you want to squeeze into the heavy traffic later.
SkoomaDentist
3hr ago
4-lane divided highways are signed at 100 km/h or less
The normal speed limit on highways is 120 km/h. 100 km/h is only during winter time.
phailyoor
3hr ago
Mazda CX5 ... Some people think this is "fun to drive".
For a crossover, it's pretty great. Feels like driving a normal car, unlike the cr-v or rav4, which feel like ass to drive.
the_Culture_is_great
3hr ago
- Yes for habit, no penalty if not
- Yes for cars, Idaho stop should be legal for bikes. A very slow rolling stop in a car is a minor sin though, many places would be fine with yields only.
- No, minor speeding is fine as long as safe for conditions - in sense areas traffic calming design is better, on highways limits should typically be higher. I'd prefer saner speed limits that are enforced to the letter in general rather than loosely goosy ones though.
- Yes, left lane is for passing (on freeways, streets are different due to turns). Riding a bumper is dangerous, but expected to happen if you're not passing on the left
- No, dangerous for everyone. Accept that the other person isn't considerate and merge safely later.
- No, despite the fact that some drivers can make better decisions, the rules should be universal for everyone.
- Bikes should take the entire lane if it's not safe to pass within the lane with >1m of space.
phailyoor
3hr ago
Used B9 Audi S4. There's something about the tuning of a sports car that makes it much more fun to drive and throw around corners. I also drove an Accord for a while and it's plenty fast (especially after upgrading it with racing pedals), but I don't have the urge to go loco with it.
Luxury cars also do add some bells and whistles, like RGB interior lighting, better materials, massaging seats, more screens etc. It's nothing that really affects getting from point a to b, but it feels nice to have. If you have the money and drive a lot then splurge, because you'll spend hours sitting in there.
Southkraut
Vibe of vibes, saith the Preacher, vibe of vibes; all is vibe.
3hr ago
In addition to what all the others wrote, and keeping in mind that leftists are an increasingly rare but still essential resource on the motte, why not leave?
You can enjoy living in a bubble where you're right and everyone around you is right, everyone agrees on everything and there needn't be any controversial debates in which, god forbid, there might not be one side that is clearly correct and another side that falls in line after being shown the obvious truth. Instead, if your American bubbles are anything like our German bubbles, you and the well-aligned people around you who already know what is right and what is wrong can heap fire and brimstone on the outgroup with impunity. Not, mind you, that discourse on the motte is always better than that. But it'll feel good. It'll feel good to be right, and among other right-thinking people, and to hate the wrong-thinkers together. You can bond over your shared hatred, and if that ever gets boring, have a little purity spiral and ostracize some of your former own who didn't stand sufficiently far on the right side of history. And when you're done hating, you can go back to educating those around you, teaching them the latest and greatest in sociopolitical innovation.
Leftists do this. Rightists do this. Apolitical people who stumble into political bubbles and just try to fit in do this. Why shouldn't you do it too?
And especially why bother continuing to argue when doing so is only likely to be """rewarded""" with mass-downvotes and distributed dogpiles by commentators on a forum you don't even really like, and only stick around on out of some sort of... IDK, perverse masochism, I guess?
The majority of people here are willing to engage in reasonably good faith with fairly deep arguments , which you typically will not find on Reddit, Twitter or elsewhere. There is an obvious a rightwing bias, as this site's userbase is primarily composed of members of the right-leaning, abandoned themotte subreddit. Reddit's socialism or democratic subs may be more up your alley though; there are many to choose from, whereas Reddit by comparison has actively censored anything to the right of the mainstream, and is why this site was created.
Despite my faint hopes, the dysfunction in this country appears to be acclerating.
The thing is, both sides see the country spiraling down the drain or otherwise in decline, but in the opposite direction.
celluloid_dream
3hr ago
Stop signs are periods, not commas.
If a driver has slowed to a crawl (walking pace or less) for a stop sign, they have done 99% of the work toward preventing an accident. Assuming they would fully stop if anything else is nearby, then to me, it doesn't matter if they roll the stop sign slowly on a clear intersection.
If you feel differently, I'm curious why
remzem
4hr ago
haha, I like this moderating more. Less hiding behind the sterile legalese. Upvoted.
Why not bother?
By the sounds of it, you've become disillusioned by a sense of your impotence at changing others to your preferred views. Congratulations! You are recognizing a truth that already existed.
Be at ease. You have not become less persuasive over time, nor have humans become more unreasonable. Political tribalism did not begin in the last decades. The internet just brought the filters that already existed into clearer focus, by putting people who were previously behind regional media filters in contact with each other. The nature of connecting people is that you can now disagree with people who you previously never would have known strenuously disagreed with you.
But again, this was already the case. What has changed isn't the circumstances, but your cognition. If you only bothered to talk rather than fight because of a flawed and faulty cognition let you convince yourself that you were cleverer and more persuasive than you actually were, then perhaps you should not bother. (With either, obviously- if you can't trust your judgement on how well you can talk, you certainly shouldn't trust your judgement on whether and when to fight.)
But bothering doesn't require that sort of self-importance. And thanks to that, even if you can't force others to change, you can change your own thinking, and thus your reason to bother.
Why bother continuing to argue (and especially why bother continuing to argue online- an exercise in futility if I ever heard one!) when doing so is unlikely to change the other person's mind?
Why do you believe changing the other person's mind is the point of a public argument, as opposed to shaping the audience's opinion?
An internet forum is called a forum precisely because it involves more than two people. There are the debaters, and there is the audience, and the prize of any public debate has always been the opinion of the people not directly speaking. This is why the public fora have long been the political centers, and why part of rhetoric has been how to manage the appeals to the audience's sensibility.
The audience is almost never the opponent in the exchange. The audience is, by its nature, curious enough to pay attention, but ambivalent enough to not be taking part in the first place. The stage of a forum is for those who show up to speak, but the audience is many times larger. The prize is when successful arguments get echoed by people other than your opponent at the time, and/or when someone else re-iterates your previous rebuttal if the opponent tries that same line of argument again. Or, in a specific argument, when someone else enters with an unexpected concurrence, because you've written in a way that gives them something to build off of rather than focus on a solely personal bickering.
However, it is very hard to sway the audience if you do not bother to show up and try.
Why bother continuing to argue when the people I'm disagreeing with seem to have beliefs & experiences so wildly opposite of my own that I have to wonder if we're even living in the same country?
Because you live in the same country regardless of what you wonder, and your audience knows it.
If you are posting on this forum, you are part of a continental-scale civilization. There is no 'everyone has the same experience' commonality when some people face burning summers and others freezing winters, let alone more nuanced local institutional effects. Local political machines, dominant themes and trends in schools, different religiosity (let alone which religion), and so on. If you are only able to bother disagreeing with people who you have very similar beliefs and experiences, that is a limitation on your ability to persuade.
This limitation on persuading the audience is best addressed by.... interacting more with people whose beliefs and experiences contrast with your own.
Why bother continuing to argue when people I disagree with just seem like they fundamentally can't be reasoned with at all?
Because the validity of fundamental reasonableness is a judgement for the audience, not the arguer.
To paraphrase a certain book, if a man accuses his fellow of being fundamentally unreasonable, one of them is. If there are specific people you want to write off as being in bad faith, then by all means do so. The ignore feature is there for a reason. But when speaking with categories of people, part of intellectual humility is recognizing that we can stand accused of the same things. You can make any accusation you want, but the merit / weight it has comes from the people needing to be convinced. Namely, you have to convince the audience that you are not the unreasonable one.
Fortunately, the best way to win a challenge of reasonableness, and thus disqualify the other person's influence on the audience, is to publicly and persuasively be a more reasonable person.
And especially why bother continuing to argue when doing so is only likely to be """rewarded""" with mass-downvotes and distributed dogpiles by commentators on a forum you don't even really like, and only stick around on out of some sort of... IDK, perverse masochism, I guess?
Because there is an audience here that will recognize good effort, and good rhetoric.
The Motte is a place of contrarians, not conservatives. It is not hard to be north-of-neutral on even contentious topics if you phrase well. Distributed dogpiles, on the other hand, are consistent indicators of often substantial issues. This could be a lazy pejorative, blatant bias, or letting your personal contempt for others show through.
This is valuable insight to learn about one's self. If one actually wants to become persuasive, then they need to learn to recognize, and mitigate, their bad habits.
So I ask again- why bother?
Why not?
Are you the sort of person who only bothers to engage people you disagree with when you expect to win?
Is the time for talking over?
If the time for talking wasn't over during much larger and more violent political violence years ago, why would it be over now?
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. +10 on the highway, +5 otherwise
4. Left lane is for faster traffic, but not for passing only except on highways with 3 or more lanes
5. No
6. No
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