it’s just two-dimensional chess, played for position
This makes sense if you assume the goal was to establish the credibility of future military threats, which is reasonable 2D international relations chess. Previous Trump strategies (gambits?) have involved relatively extreme opening offers followed by negotiating down to something more in line with the original plan.
Trump is not Quirrelmort or Light Yagami or Frank Underwood or whoever the fuck.
@wirehead-wannabe (via argumate)
Yeah, I’m gonna blame meritoracy for this. He won, therefore he must be brilliant. Why, if brilliance doesn’t always win, maybe it’s not possible to build a super-intelligent AI that can save the world.
(via collapsedsquid)
The most powerful computer in the world is useless if the software it runs is trash.
There are a lot of metaphorical computers running trash software in Washington, D.C.
Is the Drunken Master truly a Master, or just Really, Really Drunk in a world where every sober man is mad?
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.
We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian Government’s ability to deliver chemical weapons. The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated.
Hmn…
In her first interview since her stunning presidential election defeat by Republican rival Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for the United States to bomb Syrian air fields.
…
Asked whether she now believes that failing to take a tougher stand against Syria was her worst foreign policy mistake as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton said she favored more aggressive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad,” Clinton said in the interview, conducted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
“I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.”
Clinton noted that she had advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria after leaving government, something that Obama opposed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-hillary-clinton-idUSKBN179058
So, which timeline doesn’t result in this attack? And did we perhaps luck out on this one, in that Trump merely picked vehicles located at only one facility to strike?
Although based on Russian reactions my temporary spike in estimated risk of nuclear war has subsided.
Anonymous asked:
argumate answered:
When Anakin remembers to take his medication.
10/10 would change the national anthem to this.
On that note, it would be interesting to hear “evil” versions of various national anthems and marches. E.g. Dark Stars and Stripes Forever.
Would be nice to have distinct war and peace themes like in some 4x games, if we weren’t in a perpetual state of undeclared war.
America destroyed theme.
America villain theme.
Not quite what you were looking for, but there may be others.
<various posts>
<bambamramfan discussing lackluster enthusiasm among people for Liberalism vs harder ideologies>
I think part of the challenge here is that Liberalism has to ignore certain truths, which, like the careful balance of an immune system, is okay when an animal is healthy, but becomes a serious problem when it becomes unhealthy. So yes, there are ideological contradictions, but those only come out when the system is under stress.
Genes matter. Even just the difference in lactose tolerance can make a difference in some cases (though not much in the developed world), even if the other stuff is heavily confounded and is probably more driven by the environment than by genetics.
Culture matters. Not everything that is bad is outside the realm of culture. FGM is cultural. Cultural tolerance as a virtue is cultural.
Religion matters. The content of the instructions in a religion has an effect on the behavior of religious adherents, much like the content of the Communist Manifesto has an effect on the behavior of Communists.
Atomic Individualism is not what humans are “designed” for. We actually have to live in societies and cannot all hole up into libertarian autarchic fortresses which are immune to changes in the broader society’s culture and ideology.
When the various groups under Liberalism are sufficiently close, this can all be glossed over, and generally is in order to suppress racism, xenophobia, and so on. The typical example of violence driven by fighting about genes/culture/religion attacks someone who hasn’t done anything personally.
However, the same ideological tools used to suppress this bad behavior also prevent dealing with larger risks that loom on the horizon. You cannot have someone saying “Liberalism, except for Islam” - though I’ve seen someone say it quietly - even though the rise of various Ethnonationalists and Nationalists in Europe would probably not be happening if Europe had taken this stance.
Is there any legit reason for my toothpaste to have triclosan (an antibiotic) in it? My understanding is that that usually harms rather than helps at reducing the population of “bad” mouth flora.
I am not a doctor, and this does not constitute medical advice:
As far as I am aware of, no. I would recommend against any use of antibiotics outside of an illness as well.
Personally, I import Sensodyne from the UK, as it contains an ingredient (Novamin) which apparently occludes the dentin and reduces sensitivity (I’ve found it effective in practice). (The US version apparently merely desensitizes the nerves even though it’s sold under the same branding.)
Alcohol will also kill bacteria without the effects of antibiotics, but it’s said to dry out the mouth.
honestly if you call trump anything other than his actual name I immediately start discounting your opinion no matter how much I otherwise agree with you.
calling him “drumpf” or “45” or whatever other bullshit you’ve come up with doesn’t like, hurt the trump brand or hurt his feelings in any meaningful way. you’re just being an idiot.
Orange Capitalism Man. The Orange Man. Our First Meme-American President.
- neutral on Trump, calls him other things so left/libs panicking he’ll become the next Fuhrer don’t immediately stop listening
people who are very angry about the phrase “toxic masculinity”: what does the phrase “toxic masculinity” mean to you?
(I would very much appreciate not being super angry/offended in your answer, because the reason I’m confused is that a lot of the times when you guys talk about it I get that you’re really mad but it’s hard to understand why)
Toxic masculinity can be divided into two distinct things:
If you bite a guy and you die, that’s poisonous masculinity.
If a guy bites you and you die, that’s venomous masculinity.
I wouldn’t say I’m very angry, but it annoys me.
I understand it as meaning “being violent, being macho, having an honor culture where you have to avenge slights, being protective/jealous about women, thinking being a sissy is the worst thing in the world, etc”
A small part of my objection is that it can have a bailey of “in various ways that stereotypically-masculine behaviors/norms differ from stereotypically-feminine behaviors/norms, the stereotypically masculine ones are toxic and the stereotypically feminine ones are good.” It seems to me that there are dichotomies like individualism rather than communalism, stoicism rather than emotion, nonconformism rather than conformism, assertiveness rather than submissiveness, dignity rather than not-caring-about-dignity, a feeling of responsibility to protect others versus looking out for yourself - that it would be really easy to map onto toxic masculinity if you wanted. I’m not saying that if I phrase it as “assertiveness rather than submissiveness” anyone would read that phrase and so “oh, that’s bad, it’s toxic masculinity”. I’m saying that in real life there are ambiguous behaviors which, if you’re being assertive when someone else wants you to be submissive, they can round it off to “macho aggressiveness” and accuse you of toxic masculinity, and so have a social superweapon behind them..
But a bigger part is just that the whole phrase seems calculated to maximally offend and marginalize men. Imagine that everyone used the phrase “toxic femininity” to refer to causing drama,
being overly emotional,
gossiping, being weak, insisting other people take care of you, and other stereotypically feminine-coded bad behaviors - but there was no such phrase as “toxic masculinity” and people would get horribly offended if you tried to invent it. To me this would seem obviously calculated to pathologize women and identify the whole essence of being feminine with extreme versions of negative stereotypes. Well….
I get this, and I can see why the hypocrisy is galling, but actually instead of less context (swapping masculinity for femininity and seeing if we still like the logic), I reach my conclusion by adding more context.
Toxic masculinity really is worse than toxic femininity. Violence is worse than gossip. Like on one hand we have the evil of Abigail from the Crucible, but on the other hand we have… war.
I’m extremely anti-masculine because even as a man I can step back and say “masculinity has caused way, way too many deaths.” Aggression is bad for the self and very bad for the people who get stepped on, and yet it’s a degenerate and dominant strategy in our social and economic model.
Unfortunately, because “acting like a cliche man” is so advantageous, the real risk is an ideology that latches onto to the particulars of “being a man” as the problem and copies the behavior, thinking it can be purified if done by someone else.
So what you get is people harassing men in a confrontational manner, using all the tools of masculine aggression, but thinking it’s not toxic masculinity because it’s done by a woman (or by a group of people including some men, but who say they are doing it on behalf of women.)
And at it’s worse, the phrase “toxic masculinity” seems part of that memeplex, whereby we take the worst behaviors of man-world and legitimize them so long as they are being done by people we are calling not-masculine.
It must be acknowledged the role that straight neurotypical women have in reinforcing these behaviors. If they weren’t successful in the dating scene, if cishet nt women did not flock to currently high status men and shun currently low status men, regardless of how that status was obtained, if fewer of them fled at vulnerability and other feminine-coded behaviors, then the behavior of straight neurotypical men would change in response.
Instead straight men often seem to hold the idea that if they are not strong, if they are not masculine, if they are not successful, they will not be loved.
And realistically we know it isn’t going to happen. The real thing that undermines it will be the total gender meltdown under Transhumanism as millions of men and women flee their roles or carve out new ones more suited to themselves.
If the current attraction model and sexual liberalism are to be kept, then people have to acknowledge the consequences instead of heaping it all on one gender.
