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@Dr.Franklin
The great (from their point of view) thing about Russian interference is that, unlike most psy-op campaigns ever, this one works best whenever it's NOT concealed.
Trump: *wins 2016 election*
Left: Russia interfered in the election! We, being traditionally not foreign policy hawks, suddenly care a whole lot about this fact. Surely there's no particular reason behind this...
Trump (recognizing that the Left's sudden focus on this is intended as an attack on the legitimacy of his election): *doubles down to the point of making false statements*
Left: OMG Trump has denied the consensus of the intelligence community he is weakening America REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Russians: *lean back from a very safe distance and sip vodka*
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@RationalMadman
I'm curious as to how you reached these conclusions. The Old Testament was quoted extensively by the New Testament, and by Jesus. The New Testament also quoted the Psalms, which were songs of praise to the God of the Old Testament. There is nothing to suggest that the God of the Old Testament is distinct from, much less opposed to, the God of the New Testament, with the exception of the fact that trinitarian doctrine was not directly present in the Old Testament.
It seems that you are not reaching your conclusions through careful reading of Scripture but rather from your own imagination. Am I wrong?
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@RationalMadman
Also, such references to "blazing fire" would be a manner by which ancient Semitic peoples described heavenly glory. If the Ezekiel passage that I cited above is to be taken as a reference to Satan, we have reason to believe that he himself enjoyed heavenly glory (as an angel) before his fall from grace. Angels, by dwelling in the presence of God, partake in His glory without themselves being God.
Exodus 34:29-35 describes the face of Moses as being imbued with divine glory because he had been in the presence of God. But this fact did not make Moses the same as God.
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@RationalMadman
The name Satan literally translates "accuser". This is important because the role of the Devil is to accuse us before the Throne of God on account of the sins we've committed, so that we should face punishment for such and be denied eternal life. Jesus, on the other hand, is our advocate before God the Father.
It's silly to think that Jesus would be both our accuser and our advocate, and that he tempted Himself in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13). In addition, since Jesus is God the Son, it probably would not have been a sin for mortal Jesus to bow down and worship immortal Jesus, so the second temptation in the aforementioned passage would not have made sense if the one doing the tempting was God. This would also imply that God tempts humans into sin, which is expressly rejected elsewhere in the New Testament, and implied in the Book of Job (in which God merely gave the devil permission to tempt Job, without Himself so acting to tempt).
(In theory you could get around this by drawing a distinction between Biblical references to "devils" and "Satan", which would be to imply that one is not the other. Please note that I know nothing about how all this was originally translated in Hebrew/Aramaic; the only thing I have to go by is our less accurate English versions of the Bible.)
In addition, Revelation (20:10) describes Satan (or the devil) as being thrown into the Lake of Fire, which is Hell, where he will spend an eternity. It's silly to think that Jesus would condemn himself to hell for all eternity.
In short, all Biblical references to the devil and Satan are negative, painting him as the enemy of the believer and of God. I suppose it might not be impossible to think up or even defend some kind of alternate reading in which the devil is Jesus, but what would be the point of this?
You could claim that the Biblical passages are corrupted from how They "originally" read, but then again what alternate reading is there? For whatever alternate reading you propose, what evidence is there for it? We have an abundance of preserved OT manuscripts dating back to before Christ, and NT manuscripts dating back to the second century AD (that is, within 100-170 years of the life of Christ). They all seem to read more or less the same as the texts that we have now, bearing a remarkable degree of consistency over time; in fact, many 20th and 21st century editions are themselves directly translated from some of the oldest known Biblical manuscripts that we've recovered through archaeology. But so far as I can tell there's not a single preserved text that equates the devil with Jesus.
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@RationalMadman
Ezekiel 28:11-19 seems to be where the idea originated. Christianity has often embraced esoteric readings of otherwise straightforward OT passages.
At the end of Book 12 of the "Left Behind" novel series the above is cited during the climatic scene in which Satan is judged, so I'm guessing probably most Christians who've extensively combed through the Bible are of this view as well.
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@Salixes
Probably not but I still remain skeptical as to why parents opt for home schooling, in other words, their motives.
That's easy: they don't want their kids influenced by the culture of promiscuity and bullying that defines public school. They don't want their kids going to school with the Eric Harrises and Nicholas Cruzes of this world. They don't want their kids going to school with drug pushers and addicts. They also perceive that the public school curriculum has an implicit and explicit secularist bias, which would serve to weaken religious belief.
I think that social interaction of kids with other kids is invaluable and in any case it is generally known that 80% of what school kids learn comes from home.
It's understandable that people worry about this, but homeschoolers tend to network with other homeschoolers. There are local associations and tight-knight circles that form accordingly. Some parents might not do this, but many do.
But to make kids different from others by separating them is not the way to go and you really have to question why parents perceive that what they are doing is any better.
That's kind of the point: most people are not Christian. If you want your kids to grow up to be Christian, you don't want them being like everyone else.
Something to keep in mind about this: parents cannot shield their kids forever. But what their formulative years are like for them is important. As adults they'll always have the easy option of living fully secular lives, having sex with whoever, social drinking with friends, cussing in traffic, and not giving a hoot about church. There won't be significant barriers between them and this kind of life, unless they're so hen-pecked that they cave in to pressure to get married young.
But having a religious upbringing gives a vision, rooted in memory, of something that they might possibly "come back to" one day. They probably won't, but at least it's a legitimate possibility that lingers in the back of one's mind. In this sense it actually increases rather than decreases choice. While the intent of parents is bias in favor of religion, the usual de facto result is simply to lessen the natural bias in favor of irreligion and to make for a more balanced individual.
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Dunno. The Left likes retroactively calling things that seemed to have always worked out well enough "dangerous", so it wouldn't at all surprise me that they'd take potshots at homeschooling next.
(It should be noted that most homeschooled families are suburban and white, so the fact that homeschooled students seem to score better than the general public school average isn't so impressive when viewed through that lens. But it's certainly not the humongous disaster that some people think it is. *Some* parents will exploit the option to deprive or abuse their kids, sure. But nobody fully accepts that the idea that if *some* people will abuse something it shouldn't be allowed at all. At best they believe this on a selective basis, in regards to particular things that they personally dislike while refusing to apply this same standard to other things they approve of. For example, you probably believe MTF students should be allowed to access women's bathroom and shower facilities in spite of the fact that *some* cis male students might unfortunately take advantage of this loophole to engage in voyeuristic activities.)
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@Mopac
Is this a permanent "career"? Because I heard that sometimes Orthodox faithful spend like maybe two or three weeks living in a monastery for the sake of the experience and drawing closer to God. Is that what this is?
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No, because going to college carries opportunity costs (namely, delayed entry into the workforce "for real"). If the "return" at the end of that investment is not going to be worth paying this cost, then you shouldn't go in the first place. I've heard that in many European countries most people don't go to college, because it's not such a streamlined experience as it is here. Perfectly average people with no clear end goal in sight wouldn't get much out of it anyways so they go without it, and in those societies there's absolutely no shame in the fact of having never gone.
What we should be asking is "Why will companies discriminate against you in hiring if you lack a degree?". Also, "Why won't companies hire you for a decent-paying position if you lack prior experience when they can just train you to do whatever it is they need done?".
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This show feels very self-congratulatory. Dunno.It's like the script was written to pander to a 79 year old Patrick Stewart's ego.
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@Alec
Don't you think there are poor countries whose people would rather die resisting an invasion of whatever power was trying to implement this rather than to submit to the extinction of their collective national bloodlines?
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@Dr.Franklin
Martin Luther King: "If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing, she is there to do it."
That definitely doesn't sound like MLK. Can you provide a citation?
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@Salixes
Christians reject the supposition that a person must choose to do what is sinful. Consequently, they reject the supposition that a person is defined from birth by a particular sin. Therefore they do not consider that there is such a category of person as "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", or "transsexual" to hate or discriminate against.
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It's official. As of tonight the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is no longer a member state of the European Union. It took 3 1/2 years after the initial referendum to get here, but now Parliament can say they actually followed through. Some Brits are celebrating, others are mourning. What nobody can deny is that the island nation's future trajectory is more unclear now than it has been in a long time.
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Not entirely true. The Palestinian state would get $50 Billion dollars, formal US recognition as a sovereign entity, and some land which they don't currently have. They would probably have to give up land which has already been de facto taken from them but which they still claim as theirs, but it doesn't seem to be worse than the current status quo.
IMO the deal should've offered right of return to Palestinians who have the documentation to prove they had been residents of Israel who were expelled during the various mid-20th century conflicts. Assuming the most recent wave of expellees would've been in 1973, the absolute youngest of these would be 46 years old now, generally considered to be past "military age". In addition, the pressures of uprooting themselves from their homes to live in a foreign country with a high cost of living without any social safety net, combined with the fact that at least some would lack documentation, would deter most applicable persons from making the trip, so the overall impact on Israeli society would be significant but not catastrophic.
This condition would allow the Palestinians to save face by receiving de facto acknowledgement that *some* of their own people were wrongly treated by Israel, which would remove a significant emotional barrier to a concrete settlement. And in return for this, the Palestinians would have to give up a claimed right of return for their own who were born outside of Israel. This in turn would shift the conversation towards allowing a fair deal to those Palestinians kept by their host Arab countries from integrating into these societies as full citizens. The burden of action would then rest with these countries, and away from Israel.
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Shame that the US doesn't have medicare for all but it isn't the Democrats stopping this from occurring. I wonder who is at fault and who the very person who said this closely aligns too. I am going out on a hunch and say by you complaining about this you are a hypocrite given you closely align to the Republican party that removed Obama care and gave nothing better in return.
That all sounds good on paper, but there are relevant considerations. For example, attempts by governments to fix prices have often been the cause of serious problems down the road, such as shortages. In addition, the heightened prices could be caused by institutional barriers as opposed to a failure of the free market. I haven't studied up on the subject at any great length, though of course other people (i.e. Republican senators) have and shape policy accordingly.
But more importantly, even if the GOP is wrong about medicine that's just one issue. People don't vote for single issues, they vote for parties. The Democratic Party has emerged as the party that hates whites, hates men, and hates Christians. They and their newsmedia propaganda arm have chosen to take up increasingly belligerent, radical, violent, and exclusionary rhetoric against these same groups, and a government thoroughly dominated by them would have the means to adopt a frightening agenda of wanton bigotry against American citizens and emerge as a lawless terrorist regime. I know this because I gobble up as much NYT, WashPo, The Atlantic, The Guardian, etc. as I can. These are the leading and most "venerable" Left-Wing mouthpieces in the country; one can safely assume that what they say today shapes how the party will act tomorrow. And what I see when I read their material tells me that they respect nothing but power, that these people are so unfathomably evil that if they were allowed to assume total control of the government tomorrow it would spell the end of the America I've been lucky enough to spend my entire life living in.
It doesn't require an internet access. Stop lying.
You can use it offline, sure. But from my experience, only for a little while. If I spend too long offline, it starts to demand that I "verify" my account subscription by (you guessed it) going back online. If I don't (or can't), it eventually shuts me out and I can't use it anymore.
That is to say, I did not "lie". Far from it. I was speaking from my own quite real experiences dealing with the software.
Lol who would've thought times change and people just progressively become more left and they decide to collectively group and remove awful people from platforms they like being on? Cry me a river.
Companies have enough power over our lives that if they get together and de facto collude to deny any (meaningful) career opportunity to someone because they said or wrote something unpopular, then that might as well be state action against said individual. How would you like if your own opinions were arbitrarily considered "beyond the pale" and people considered that it was "justified" to systematically exclude you from employment because of them? You think it's alright because the other side is "bad". Who are you to decide that? Do we have freedom of speech and expression or don't we?
In addition, you have no sense of scale. Even if X statement was objectively wrong to make, exclusion to the degree I've described is usually going to be far, far disproportionate to the original offense. I presume you're someone who's opposed to our system of mass incarceration, and yet you're supporting ostracizing those people who aren't perfect angels and who have, at some point in their lives prior, said something regrettable?
Who would've thought music wasn't aimed at you?
Alright, this is just petty as fvck. Am I not allowed to have an opinion on whether contemporary music has gone downhill or not? I'm not holding anyone at gunpoint and making them write music according to my personal tastes, I'm just commenting on the quality of a product from my point of view.
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@TheRealNihilist
Not sure why you're going out of your way to be such a butt to a random guy who did nothing to you.
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Don't apply to Hong Kong and Macau a standard that you wouldn't apply to California and Texas.
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(No offense to practicing Muslims intended)
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A warning: radical individualism serves to isolate the individual, which makes him more prone both to mistakes and to manipulation from the powers that be. Coherent bonds between the members of our notoriously lonely generation will have to be re-established for this to work. That doesn't mean East Asian hive mentality, but rather what we had, say, back in the 1990s or whatever.
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@Zaradi
Some people will object that apps similar to the first one described do exist currently, such as that site where a few paid contributors post videos about broad sciences/arts like "drawing" and "geometry" that subscribers can watch.
But I'm thinking something more along the lines of iTalki, which is a simply fantastic service and a very micro-level example of the above, with people knowledgeable in language instruction being able to contract out this service for whatever price they set. It wouldn't be limited to such broad abstractions in a specialized economy, and the teachers and students would decide what exactly was worth teaching/being taught based on present conditions of the job market. Whatever would help the recipient succeed in the real world, that would be what he'd pay for.
Also the fact that with iTalki you hold a face-time lesson with your instructor holds you accountable towards learning the material and not quitting after five minutes, and it allows for greater flexibility in asking questions and receiving clarification.
Others will object that trade schools exist now. But these still amount to tens of thousands of dollars spent, and as institutions with a narrow selection of fixed, perhaps even tenured professors, what they're teaching might not always be as up to date as you would like. In addition, "I'm gonna pay for some recently retired North Carolina man to teach me solar panel installation on this website" is a mentally easier commitment to make than "I'm gonna enroll in trade school" and you'd be the one in full control of what you're paying/spending time to learn. No stupid elective courses, no nitty-gritty introspection down to the molecular level of how X chemical process works when you can do the job with a more general knowledge of the science behind it (which means you can learn it a lot faster).
Even so far as some very close equivalent might actually exist, most people don't know about it and certainly aren't using it, pointing back to the whole mindset change thing.
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@Zaradi
Good question.
A big part of the problem is that population growth has been outpacing job creation for decades (assuming that this hasn't, in fact, been the trend since literally the end of WWII). It's true that low-tier jobs are plentiful, and I guess that works if you're the sort of person who enjoys serfdom. But if we're talking about good-paying middle class jobs, these are becoming more scarce relative to the number of people who could potentially fill said job. This creates kind of a women-on-Tinder situation: if you're a firm, there are so many "matches" eager to shack up with you that you can take your pick from the juiciest in the litter and give all the rest of them the shaft.
If economic growth (that is, the kind that creates plentiful good paying jobs) had been significantly greater from, say, the Reagan era until now, we really wouldn't be in this situation, and nobody in the mainstream would be talking about capitalism as this sinking behemoth. The problem with this is, corporatism represents monolithic concentration of resource allocation. These massive companies don't put their metaphorical eggs in ten dozen baskets at once because they couldn't hope to manage all of that. Instead, their operations tend to keep a relatively narrow focus, and so top-down growth is limited by this fact.
This is a similar problem to that faced by command economy of the Soviet Union. It should be noted that this top-down style is very good at implementing those ideas it does have, and filling those niches it's able to specifically focus on filling. Normal people are often unmotivated and don't have access to endless funding. If they do secure a bank loan, and their business venture goes sour, the consequences for them personally would be far greater than a corporation that could bail out or sell one of its subsidiaries.
But overall we won't get the (good) job creation needed to sustain capitalism if we remain on a top-down model. Now, just haphazardly throwing money at the bottom is extremely problematic because the bulk of that money would be squandered and the hoped-for "growth" would fail to materialize. But the bottom is our only real option.
So how exactly do we pull this off?
First, better integration of data as to allow for better communication. First off, imagine a website where everybody can post their resumes publicly, and their profiles state where they live. From where you live (also stated on your profile), you can either search for stuff based on proximity to where you live or by profession and skillsets related to such, or simply a random search.
When you "match" with somebody, you can pay them to teach you everything they know about a specific area they know a lot about so that you too now have that same skillset. The teacher's profile, if established to authentically belong to that person, can be used as an endorsement for them having learned a skillset at the end of the sessions. So instead of scrounging around desperately hoping for an unpaid internship offer or for somebody kind enough to hire an applicant who knows nothing about the job, you can take a class on literally anything (provided you find somebody willing to teach it), get a PDF certification from this person, and then go up to a human resources department and be like "Yo I learned the basics of how to do this job from Billy, and Billy's been doing it twenty years. Here are some of Billy's contacts, his old boss at X company. After that, here's the certification showing we met IRL twelve times over two months and he taught me it all."
But let's say that's not enough. Let's say there simply aren't enough good jobs to go around, and, even worse, that a sudden glut of skilled applicants makes it even harder to stand out.
What now?
Here comes the second part. You ready?
Remember that I mentioned integration of data. This would also include economic data, stated on a crisp, concise software which breaks down the enormous web of transactions taking place in the real world and online, and especially so far as is locally relevant (I say local both as in real life and as in one's "local cyberspace") in such a way that anyone can understand it, even if they get a migraine spending long hours piecing it all together.
From here, you can look and see if you can find some kind of possible niche to fill somewhere. If you don't have the job skills to fill that niche, no problem. You can take two/three month course and then roll up your sleeves. But let's say whatever it is, it's gonna take more than just you to take it off. So you use networking to see if you can find somebody willing to partner with you.
Boom. Just like that you've got a team of independent contractors coming together to accomplish a common goal. Do they need money to finance it? No problem. Either they can pool their resources or reach out over the internet to ask if anybody's interested in investing for a share in the eventual returns. Some people would make a living just doing that, peering over the pages of "e-invest.com" for new offerings that sounded promising.
And the manpower of some of these collaborations would get bigger and bigger, but without autocratic top-down management. Real-time information sharing would serve to regulate the behavior of the masses without such a person being needed. And if these megaprojects stopped carrying available space for new people to join in and share in the profits, these excluded people could start from the drawing board and find a new niche.
But for all of this to happen, some change in corporate law would be needed to accommodate these new arrangements where ownership is more vaguely defined. I have no clue what this'd look like. Consult a lawyer.
Finally, a general mindset of passivity needs to be flushed out of our collective consciousness. We should not be "looking for a master to serve in exchange for pay". We should consider ourselves to be economic actors on a market selling our valued labor, looking out for the best deal and even forging a new one if necessary.
Whether we're strong enough to make this happen is another matter. If not, then:
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@Greyparrot
You're close. But even a reformed public education system couldn't solve this.
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@Stronn
Your profile says you're at a post-doctoral level of educational attainment. This suggests that you're older, with decades of diverse workplace experience, and a very impressive resume. And to begin with, you probably joined the workforce back when it was easier to get your foot through the door.
If this accurately describes you, you do not represent the typical American experience nowadays.
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The economy of the 2020s is one that will continue and escalate the trends of the past.
While the average worker remains more or less an average guy, hiring prerequisites have grown exponentially. Gone are the days where anyone from virtually any background can simply be trained on-site and then start making a livable salary after a month or two. Requirements for prior work experience, certification, high educational attainment, and unrealistic anecdotes of "I have saved the company money by suggesting and implementing innovative solutions to problems" have outpaced the ability or willingness of many, if not most, people to meet these.
In the same vein, people who entered the workforce during a time when barriers to entry were far lower are now decades into their illustrious careers, often having ascended to affluent management positions, and who are not keen on retiring in sufficient numbers to give space to younger people (and here by "younger people" I mean the middle aged instead of the elderly; people under 30 would still have no chance in this event).
The ball is definitely in the park of the employers. They can collectively impose whatever conditions they want and it's up to the rest of us to suffer because of their unreasonableness. In addition, because of inflation and the drastic rise in home prices over time, actually managing to meet these progressively more insane hurdles will not put you "ahead" of your forebears socioeconomically. Rather, the best you can hope for is that your "higher salary" does, adjusted for inflation, match what they made. The price of this, in many cases, is tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that your forebears knew nothing of.
These are the lucky few; there are also millions of young people with a relatively passive attitude towards life who have no business being in college but their parents talked them into it because "hey why not if you have any degree it'll magically be a meal ticket for you". These people are perhaps the most screwed of all. Even if they graduate without student debt they pretty much wasted several years of their lives and are in no better shape when it's time to whip out the resume and apply for work somewhere.
The reasons for this are simple: capital and organizational efficiency can accumulate over time, but any new person being born will not inherit the knowledge of his/her forebears and so will start out life as a "blank slate" no wiser than the people who came before him/her, having zero managerial background or relevant technical expertise to begin with. As systems increase in complexity over time, humans are not well-adapted to adjust to this. In addition, there is little infrastructure in place to help them do so effectively.
This is why capitalism has failed in contemporary America: average people simply can't keep up with these institutions and as a result they are growing more and more disempowered over time.
This is where the conservative and the liberal diverge.
The liberal says remake the system. A conservative would say make better people who are more able to compete. I'd say both are needed to some degree or another. A country whose people are actually strong enough to keep up would certainly be blessed with prosperity and power as compared to the rest of the world. But this probably couldn't be sustained indefinitely.
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@Singularity
I have a massive potbelly, a grossly disheveled and uncleanly appearance, and post incoherent rants about how all women need to be terrorism-bombed on my page on my Tinder account. Why don't extremely attractive women who are already each bombarded with dozens of friendly messages from guys much more attractive than I am want to sleep with me?
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I can't possibly imagine how this might end badly. The mere thought is truly inconceivable.
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@Username
Let me tell you a little secret:
My over-the-top initial response to the situation aside, the killing of Soleimani was not disproportionate. He's responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, yes. But even that's not the point. Even if Soleimani wasn't, killing him still would've been the right call.
The most immediate objection is that it "doesn't feel" proportionate. One American contractor was killed, big whoop. The lives of dozens of embassy staff members were endangered by an attempted storming. Big whoop. We assassinated a top Iranian government official in response to a situation that we "didn't feel" warranted it.
This actually reflects a failing of the general public. We've grown numb to the killings of Americans because it happens all the time. If not abroad, then at home. We simply don't have the "emotional energy" to register a response every time something happens. And that's understandable.
But this is also a dangerous situation to be in, because what's really happening is we're being conditioned to accept a world that's less safe for Americans, which in turn invites more violence against Americans.
The only way to prevent this is for our government to "get mad" for us. Now, government officials on all levels are like us in that they're also quite capable of growing numb to American deaths.
The solution is to employ a criterion which has the de facto effect of maintaining a spirit of wrathful vindicativeness by the nation even if nobody actually feels anger anymore. This comes in the form of rules that we have to retaliate harshly. A government that fails to do this has failed to protect its citizens.
Or, at least, that's one way of looking at it. Other governments are, of course, as nationalistic as ours is, and so they may share our intention to retaliate for slights against them. In addition, the instinct of any government is to reject the notion that their actions caused them or their citizens to deserve to undergo harm.
So it can quickly become a tit-for-tat. That's why the Obama Administration tried to avoid the retaliation I'm talking about here. For the past couple of days it looked like we were stuck in a "cycle" of this nature with Iran, seemingly proving Trump's detractors right. However, the fact that Iran ended the cycle of mutual retaliation with a non-deadly missile strike intended only to save face without inciting further retaliation has thrown this "proving wrong" into question. It seems, so far at least, that Trump's gambit has in fact paid off.
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Let me just say that right now is an absolutely horrific time to dig in our heels and invite a prolonged bout in the Middle East. As nobody seems to be paying any attention to, Taiwan will be holding its national elections on the 11th, and thanks to the messy business in Hong Kong Tsai and the DPP seem slated to win again. It has been speculated for years now that if Tsai Ing-Wen gets re-elected it could mean war.
In China, the economic slowdown is putting internal pressure on Xi Jinping's grip on power. A sudden infusion of ultranationalism from invading a neighboring country could be just what he needs to reconsolidate his authority. Note that similar factors played into Vladimir Putin's decision to annex Crimea in 2014; this operation was preceded by flagging approval numbers and large-scale protests in Moscow against the incumbent party. Signs that the U.S. might be too distracted by Iran to respond strongly will embolden Xi.
Strangely enough, a Chinese official is scheduled to come to the U.S. on the 13th and sign Phase I of the final U.S.-China trade deal. This could be a subterfuge designed to mask Chinese intentions to attack Taiwan the day before this, or the day after the election.
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It appears now that the Iranians went out of their way to avoid actually killing anyone, though it should be noted that we've yet to have any solid reports of what the human toll from the attack is. In short, this was intended to save face without escalating, and also to send a warning of the damage they're capable of inflicting.
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Trump you friggin moron. If the Iraqis want you to withdraw troops and ambassadorial presence then just do it. It's their loss in the long run. Don't turn the entire world against us. America is not Russia or China.
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@HistoryBuff
If so, it was incredibly stupid. This just further proves that the US doesn't respect anyone without nuclear weapons. The US government believes they have the right and authority to murder anyone, anywhere, at any time, no matter who objects to it. The only way to prevent them from murdering you is if you have the ability to nuke them. It will only convince more people that the only way to get america to treat you with respect is to have nuclear weapons.
The example of North Korea is precisely the reason why dictators don't normally try to get nuclear weapons. Sure, maybe Kim won't be invaded by the US any time soon. But the price North Korea has had to pay for this "security" is beyond the pale.
They're prime real estate in one of the wealthiest regions of the world, having also been blessed with huge reserves of coal. And yet there are desperately poor African countries where the average person enjoys a higher standard of living than the average North Korean.
But the implications of this aren't just for the bottom rungs of society: Sanctions also limit the ability of the local elite caste to import luxury items or launder their money overseas, and the continued support of these elites is instrumental in propping up the regime that is.
Iran's economy is clearly suffering from US sanctions. But things haven't reached North Korean levels yet. Nowhere close to it. If Rouhani and the Ayatollah believe things can't get worse, they're sadly mistaken.
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if anything good came out of this, it's that we took out a potential Putinesque figure.
Let's say the aging Ayatollah dies tomorrow without an appointed successor, and Iran has to contemplate what its government is going to look like going forward. They'd have three options:
1. Dissolve into an array of petty ethnostates (improbable and undesirable)
2. Become a peaceful democracy that isn't trying to butt-rape the US and its allies
3. See power consolidated under a charismatic strongman type, presumably from the intelligence or national security apparatus of the former regime
Soleimani's death makes Option #3 seem less likely now, since he would've been the most likely candidate in this event.
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@Vader
No. The US just went and murdered an Iranian government official.
This is literally the kind of thing that starts international wars. But Trump doesn't give a crap. He treated a 2,500 year old sovereign country as though the lives of its citizens are cheap, as though Iranians can be put down like dogs if the US simply labels them as terrorists first.
This man was not a criminal. For 21 years he was following the orders of his government, which is not at war with the US and which does not seem to be responsible for major war crimes in the 21st century. When the US does morally objectionable stuff, we do not treat our foreign policy officials as war criminals. Soleimani was in that same position, except for "the other side".
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6 here. If I'm not mistaken you're only like 1 or 2 older than that, and then there are users who got started on DDO pretty much when it first started around 2007 and who still pop up from time to time (e.g. buddamoose, danielle, sitaramusica, etc).
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Yeah, by all accounts Tucker Carlson doesn't actually give a crap. But saying what he does gains him a sizable and loyal audience. Exactly what any newsmedia pundit wants.
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@Alec
Enforce the corporate income tax, slash the welfare and military budgets. But be prepared for sharp contraction of GDP growth.
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@Dr.Franklin
This argument, which I assume is either the same as or closely related to the "greatest thing which could be conceived of" argument, relies on a key assumption:
That the human imagination is the arbiter of what reality objectively looks like. In fact, even the human senses do not reflect what is true. The brain is a complicated amalgamation of neurons and synapses, which are bodily organs that perform finite, understandable functions. Rather than truly recreating reality, the brain can only conjure a representation of *what it thinks* reality looks like based on its inherent limitations. Sometimes these representations have practical value, other times they don't. That's why we are able to imagine wild fantasies: because the brain is capable of being insanely wrong about any subject.
We don't know whether a "being of maximal (infinite) proportions" is actually a possibility. We can only imagine such, which does nothing to prove anything one way or another.
We don't know whether "every possible Universe" is a thing, because our conception of possibility is whatever the human mind cooks up, which, as established above, is not the great arbiter of what reality actually looks like.
In theory, one "possible Universe" could be filled entirely by the presence of such an entity. But if all possible Universes were filled entirely by that one (since it was of "maximal" size) then you would be denying the possibility that there exists a Universe without such an entity, or a Universe where such an entity exists but does not fill the entirety of it, rendering the notion of "every possible Universe" existing null and void.
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Rey is uninteresting but a lot of the hate she receives is undeserved. If she were an uninteresting male character (e.g. Luke) most people would be like "huh" and shrug it off. The difference is that she's the victim of uninspired writing, whereas the original Star Wars was groundbreaking in virtually all respects at the time so nobody really sees Luke as boring because it was a good movie. She had the misfortune of starring in a lackluster film series, and because she was a boring female character she unjustly got the blame for all of it.
The label "Mary Sue" is overdone as well. This Star Wars trilogy was going to be made whether feminism was a thing or not (as any Star War film was obviously going to be a big cash cow), and it was going to suck whether feminism was a thing or not because whoever the writer was just plain sucked. Looking back Anakin was an enormous Mary Sue (he started his training years later than everyone else but still ended up nearly qualified to sit on the Jedi Council at roughly 25 years old though everyone else on there was fricking ancient and had spent their entire lives serving the Jedi Order and mastering their art before receiving the honor), but nobody calls him that because he had a penis.
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There are no ethnostates in central and South America. Or anywhere in the Americas.
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@Greyparrot
Oh yeah. There's a Trump rally tonight, isn't there?
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Interestingly enough, at least a few of the Senators who will help decide Trump's fate have served long enough to have been present for the 1998-1999 Impeachment of Bill Clinton. Two of these are Susan Collins (who voted against) and Lindsey Graham. These two people, and perhaps some others, will have the unique honor of having cast votes in two Presidential impeachments.
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It happened.
Trump has followed in the footsteps of slick Willy and Andrew Johnson. His fate is in the hands of Senate Republicans now.
The vote tally was:
Abuse of Power: 230-197-1
Obstruction of Justice: 229-198-1
Not a single Republican representative voted to impeach. All but 3 or 4 Democratic representatives did. In the end it was a hyper-partisan impeachment.
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@Greyparrot
One poll today had it at 51%-45% not in favor of such.
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An anti-impeachment, pro-Trump demonstration is to take place today in Washington D.C., following a very large anti-Trump, pro-impeachment rally that was held Tuesday night. It is unclear how many people will show up. While the President retains tens of millions of supporters among the GOP base, Republicans are notorious for their lesser turnout rates at political gatherings. The District of Columbia in particular is a local stronghold of anti-Trump sentiment, so any supporters wishing to show up would have to travel a long way.
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This is the day Democrats everywhere have been waiting for since the conclusion of the 2016 Election. The House of Representatives is scheduled to hold a vote today on the two Articles of Impeachment that were authorized. This will be the first vote of its kind since the impeachment of President William "Bill" Clinton in December 1998. Had Democrats waited one more day, Trump's impeachment would've been held on the 21st anniversary of the famous/infamous GOP vote against the 42nd President, which would make their revenge just a tad more poetic.
House Republicans started the day off by holding a vote to stop impeachment proceedings. The measure was defeated 226-188, a sign that the President's impeachment is virtually guaranteed.
Before the vote is to be held, six hours of final debate have been scheduled, beginning at 9 AM local time. The big vote is expected for "later this evening" according to USAToday.
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Look at lions. Mating is a free-for-all. Pretty chill, right?
Roaming bands of single males attack/rape hitched females in a desperate bid to pass on their genes in a system stacked against them. If one of them succeeds in killing the alpha male, he will then murder the female's children that she had with the previous alpha so that she'll devote all her attention to mating with him and siring his children. Of course, now he's the alpha so now another group of foreign males is going to eventually come along and do the exact same thing.
^This used to be us. Yes, the human race. You wanna force average men to choose between dying alone and becoming cold-blooded rapists? Be my guest. At least you'll have succeeded in giving the finger to those Christian meanies who're out to spoil everyone's fun for no reason.
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