@MartinSkold2 maybe the UAE can find the balls to hire a land army (Pakistanis?) and conquer Iran?
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politics_reply_guy
12.8K posts
Broke: This war is like Dune because it concerns control of a desert supply chokepoint for a critical resource needed for international trade and transportation
Woke: This war is like Dune because it is about water scarcity
Anas Alhajji@anasalhajji
"The last thing Iran would want is a VLCC loaded with 2 million barrels of oil exploding or spilling near its shores. Iran itself relies on more than 65 desalination plants along the Gulf coast, though they supply only a small fraction of its water needs." "More critically, neighboring Gulf countries—home to large Shia populations near coastal areas—depend heavily on hundreds desalination facilities. These plants provide the vast majority of drinking water in places like Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and even Oman. A major oil spill could contaminate intakes and cripple water supplies across the region, affecting millions—including many Shia communities. Either the parties involved have lost all sense of self-preservation, or the media reports are inaccurate/misrepresented." Sea mines are simple weapons that could give Iran outsize power to wreak havoc with the global economy wsj.com/world/middle-e… via @WSJ
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@ReubenR80027912 there are all kinds of low hanging fruit here, he just is unwilling to make life even a little bit difficult for banks and employers of illegals
realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/…
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Partially to blame is that the RW influencer/amplification machine only runs off high traffic conspiracy so this type of policy-adjacent content feels like decaf tea vs a fat line of “Reptilians control the Jews who killed Charlie to control you”
But that’s the state of things
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One of the odder things about Trump 2.0 is a total abrogation of his (rather literal) bully pulpit
You’d *imagine* Trump would tweet about long lines b/c Ds want to protect illegals clogging up hospitals & stealing resources but he…just never does that stuff (1/2)
Jarrett Renshaw@JarrettRenshaw
6 am at Philly airport...security line back to the hotel Marriott... I have never seen a line this long in Philly.
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@MartinSkold2 @EightBabyMizz to be fair, we kind of need a good proving ground for effective and economic SHORAD systems, so maybe Iran can oblige a worldwide competition
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@EightBabyMizz It will be a target for concentrated drone and missile fire of the type we’ve been unable thus far to suppress. In other words, for it to solve the problem, the problem would have to already be solved.
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I’m a take Kharg and squat on it and/or trash it advocate. Here’s why I might be wrong, or at least missing parts of the puzzle.
I think it should be taken to support the objective of destroying their military industrial base to prevent them from projecting power.
Martin Skold@MartinSkold2
It doesn’t. I’ll steel man it: The theory is that if we target their meal ticket (oil revenue) and hold their sovereign territory (which they’ll want back), we can force their surrender or at least have some negotiating leverage. The problem is that a) we’re threatening them with a good time (they get to pound our guys who will be stranded and unable to effectively return fire, b) they’re already fighting without pay - they’re now a war economy, and c) they already hold several trump cards, including the potential to strike more oil facilities or water supplies, and they’re not fighting anywhere near as dirty as they could. There are ways to gain escalation dominance over them -there-, too, but you don’t want me to say what they are.
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@zenpundit one day in the future the *only* kids at public schools will be IEP cases
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@mattparlmer if we can deploy reasonably workable autonomous robocops I think we can potentially stop the brazilification
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Without eyepopping technological progress on the horizon this would also be my assessment as well, but I think that the material basis of civilization will change so much in the next decade that whatever emerges on the other side will be far far weirder than rich Brazil
AM@NidarMMV2
@mattparlmer imo america becomes a richer brazil the top 1% live incredibly well, just behind gates maybe the top third does fine but the bottom half gets a much worse ghettos expand, crime rises, and everyday life becomes harsher kinda already there in small pockets tbh
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@gcochran99 @Anti_Dialectik @AnthonyJSisk @unusual_whales the trouble is that the office of "voter" has also become majority pinheads, so I'm not sure how we can expect a much different result
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@Anti_Dialectik @AnthonyJSisk @unusual_whales It's beginning to look like a pattern. Machiavelli said that one advantage of a republic is that it can choose to always elect competent leaders, while every third hereditary ruler is a fool.. Machiavelli was a funny, funny man.
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Senator Ossoff: "Was it the assessment of the Intelligence Community that there was an 'imminent nuclear threat' posed by the Iranian regime?"
Gabbard: "The only person who can determine what is and is not a threat is the President—"
Ossoff: "False."
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@mattparlmer self-assembling Optimus robots on the moon!
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@kj29579 @dmartkc @Chris_arnade Yep. I would find it by converting medicare to “hospice only” and slashing social security payouts in half
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Every transit nerd — the urbanist who tell us over and over how much they love public transportation— has to realize until you stop this sort of crap, and make stopping it your number one goal, you and all your train love are doing nothing but annoying everyone else.
Breaking911@Breaking911
Insane Chicago train rider swinging what looks like 2 hammers says he is going to kill white people, and adds that he got out two days ago.
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@dmartkc @Chris_arnade It’s actually straightforward: you need a place to put them (psych ward or jail) and judges who keep them there
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I agree we should stop incidents like this, but actually doing it at scale seems like someone trying to say they’re going to stop all road rage incidents.
This certainly isn’t the daily experience of most transit riders even though videos like this go viral.
DC has noticeably increased security presence on trains, but short of security checkpoints at every station how does a large system actually prevent all anti-social people from ever using it?
Seems likely to require more societal level solutions like additional mental health resources and crisis responders, etc (which I’d guess most transit advocates support!)
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@eugyppius1 @scorduul If you have many years of paying social security tax the US pension package is absurdly generous
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I think both Euros and Amis tend to underrate each other as a place to live – with exceptions for big cities like New York and Paris that most agree are fantastic.
On pure quality of life issues (walkability, transit, decent shops, restaurants, much lower crime, a lot of this b/c paucity of Afroids,) Europe generally wins. Despite everything fewer migroids, but lower quality ones.
On personal freedom, escape from bureaucrat harassment, economic opportunities, US generally wins. Many more migroids, but somewhat better quality ones.
If you are middle- to lower-income, you'll probably find life in Europe with generous social programmes more comfortable and superior. Higher-mid income and up, you'll be much better off in United States.
Scott Greer 6’2” IQ 187@ScottMGreer
Euro anti-Americanism would make more sense if they offered a better alternative to America. But modern Europe isn't that different from America and, in a lot of aspects, is worse. The EU is not a BASED Imperium.
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@MostlyMonkey One aspect is that a million dollars is just not that much money
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@ouranometrian2 Color me skeptical that city people go to museums and contemplate art on the weekends
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@Politics_Reply Usually they say something like museums or whatever but most cities those also cost money and I dont want to go every weekend.
Now I did want to live in a warm climate so most of our weekend time can be spent outside, either at home or somewhere else
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People are still like...but there is nothing to do! You know there are coffee shops outside of cities and parks and hiking, lakes etc.
Also when people say omg what do you do?! It somehow is really a question on how do you consume?
Oh what thing did you go spend money on? Weird
Hans Fiene 🦬@HansFiene
So the trick is I really like my wife and kids
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@Steve_Sailer some of the brightest engineering students i knew were farm kids planning to go back to the farm
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Over recent generations, farming has become a high IQ profession. Agricultural productivity has gone up so much that only the farm family heir with the most on the ball inherits the farm. For example, this farmer intellectually crushes the activist in debate:
Sama Hoole@SamaHoole
Activist: "British farmers should transition to plant-based crops." Farmer: "Two thirds of Britain's agricultural land cannot grow crops." Activist: "With investment..." Farmer: "The investment required to terrace, drain, and cultivate upland Britain would cost more than the food it produced would ever be worth." Activist: "It could be done." Farmer: "Economically, ecologically, and practically, it cannot. The hill farmers have tried for three thousand years to push the line upward. The line is where it is." Activist: "Technology changes things." Farmer: "Technology cannot change the angle of a fell or the depth of the topsoil." Activist: "Other countries manage hillside farming." Farmer: "With enormous subsidy, at great environmental cost, and still not competitively." Activist: "What's your alternative." Farmer: "Sheep and cattle on the hills. Arable on the valleys. The same system that's fed Britain since before the Romans." Activist: "That sounds old-fashioned." Farmer: "It works. That's why it's old."
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@pastasnack_e @sgodofsk I went to the atomic testing museum off the strip, that was interesting
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@sgodofsk Yes, las vegas has the most cursed vibe of probably anywhere I've ever seen
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I want to love the Hoover Dam but having visited there I felt like an ant. Totally desolate, huge and inhuman. Hot enough that you would die very quickly if abandoned there. Genuinely quite a frightening vibe.
lusso@luusssso
I’m 100 percent convinced the Art Deco design of Hoover Dam is America’s greatest ever public project and we’ll probably never come close again
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@LudditeHacker Unfortunately, it is much easier to coordinate voting based on resentment and fear than rational arguments.
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The same reason I'm skeptical of hyper anti-Americanism as a path btw. This is just ressentiment, that is unhealthy and does not bring much. We are weak, we've chosen retarded strategies that leaves us at the whims of the Americans, so we must hate. Lame
x.com/FistedFoucault…
Niccolo Soldo (Fisted By Foucault)@FistedFoucault
Everyone just needs to accept that the USA is the enemy and move on from there. Personal relationships are outside of this, but it would do everyone on this side of the pond to accept the reality and to understand that there is no "Good America" nor any potential allies there.
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The American chud is hurt and pained and so must show his prowess by beating his chest and pointing at past glory. Lots of comments like this. Europeans are lib coded, and 'cultured' we're like the coastal elites but worse to the american heartland. There is a lot anguish here
Evil Anglo Nietzschean Agamemnon@PunshedCaligula
@LudditeHacker American culture, before Lincoln, was guns, tobacco, rebellion, whiskey and genocide for the Aryan race. Modern yuro culture is just bitching about America, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and letting in millions of “immigrants a year” while impotently complaining.
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@fitzr1122 America can survive this ruin but it is bad
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People need to stop buying this. It's his dumb maximum pressure routine trying to pressure allies to join the fight.
Javier Blas@JavierBlas
BREAKING: Trump on Iran: "We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts [...] The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!"
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@ringwiss unfortunately, the Rs are running the Temu version of the "talking filibuster" and are going to draw unjustified conclusions from it
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@ringwiss Sen. Lee is correct that many in the Senate are unwilling to subject their personal schedules to chaos on the floor
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The indolence of ſome, the inattention of others, and the love of amuſement in many.
Jordain Carney@jordainc
👀 RonJon confirms to me that rs have an attendance problem and that the Dems know it Said it's tbd if Senate will be able to do SAVE amendment vote as planned on Saturday
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