All valid and fair points.
Regardless, I truly hope we never have to find out either way. The human species is capable of incredible things if we just set aside historical, cultural, and petty differences and worked towards a common goal of lifting everyone up. Wars of aggression are barbaric and unnecessary and I hope one day we all mentally evolve past such tendencies for mass violence. It’s a naive pipe dream, but one can always dream.
If nukes started popping off, there’d be zero reason to send in ground forces until it was all over. Lastly, I’m not convinced Russia’s nuclear program is much better off than NATO’s. So many interviews with nuke watch officers talking about how old and decrepit our silos are. The DoD supposedly approved a modernization package a few years ago for all of them, but I’m still skeptical how efficient the targeting is on everything and how well they’ll avoid missile defense systems.
Very true, especially in countries like the US:
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-murder-unsolved-killings-record-high
https://thehill.com/homenews/3878472-nearly-half-of-us-murders-going-unsolved-data-show/
For the US, the national average is around 40-50% for unsolved homicides. Some states/cities are even higher. Pretty depressing, really. We live in a heavy Police State society and yet law enforcement fails so badly in their primary purpose.
In today’s dollars (US), that’s roughly $90,000. Depending on what a large volume means, that’s not too shabby for a random CIA grunt. I also try to remember that not all classified info is actually that worthwhile. When I worked for the government, sending generic emails on a classified network could make them classified (unless you properly marked them as Unclassified, which most workers didn’t due to laziness).
Oh for sure, they’ve made some progress and there are a lot of D reps and senators who want to do much more, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But, the modern American public at large act like the president is some grand arbiter of getting laws passed single-handedly. Many ignore that it’s Congress that’s the most dysfunctional component when it comes to actually getting things done for the last two-some-odd decades. Hell, we have tons of people that chalk up the entire state of the economy on a single person every election cycle, it’s craziness.
Anyway, my point is that anyone that’s actually paying attention in good faith knows it’s almost entirely the GOP blocking healthcare reform. But, as we’ve especially learned these last 10+ years, many Americans don’t pay attention to reality.
That 8 years thing for healthcare could easily backfire. The majority of Americans are very fed up with our healthcare, and Democrats haven’t done much to fix it this administration either (not entirely their fault, we have a gridlocked Congress and Senate, after all). The concept of a plan quote is hilarious, though! My friends and I plan on using it at work from now on.
Anyway, even most Republican media outlets have conceded that Harris won last night. As for the MAGA cult itself, I honestly haven’t bothered to go down that internet hole yet, nor am I likely to. I’m sure there’s countless bots/trolls spinning the story and creating a fake reality already, with plenty of zealots lapping it up because their collective delusion requires it.
I’ll call it sleep deprivation, but I initially read the the title as “spiders” instead of “soldiers” at least twice. I was like, “how the hell is this even propaganda?”
No offense, but I’d safely bet maybe 0.1% of current generation young men have watched any of those movies. This article is primarily talking about younger Gen Z folks (18-30), so people born 1994-2006. These males specifically consume idiot social media personalities vs old school macho man movies from the 50s and 60s.
According to your equaldex link, there seems to be some conflicting data there. In one of the questions, over 70% of those surveyed said they wouldn’t want gay neighbors, and over 80% said being gay isn’t justifiable. But 63% support legal recognition of gay couples. Then 66% support gay couples being able to adopt, yet almost 60% have negative views on gays being parents?
Just weird to me you can support legal aspects but still mostly oppose homosexuality, is all. I suppose it’s better than wanting legal oppression of homosexuality.
This shift has been happening for over a decade… How is this news? Obama ordered the pivot during his presidency and the DoD has been acting on that ever since.
And how much of those profits go to those workers? Let’s take a well known Marvel movie, the Avengers Endgame. It cost roughly $220 million to make. The total global box office for that movie is estimated around $2.8 billion. That’s ~$2.6 billion in profit. Please tell me how much of that went to the film crews and various film departments? Hell, a huge chunk of the budget cost probably went to the actors to begin with.
Anyway, my original point wasn’t even entirely around sticking it to the billionaires. Until laws are made to protect our ownership of digital licenses, I have zero problems with people pirating. Additionally, the majority of folks are going to be paying, so a minority of people–who typically have lower disposable income–pirating content are not destroying regular peoples’ livelihood, this has been proven for over two decades now.
Bottom line: Come down from your ivory tower and just let it rest. Regardless of what either of us says or believes, pirating will continue with or without us. You can disagree with it, which is fine, or you can justify it, which is also fine. It won’t change reality either way.
Defending multi-billion dollar corporations in this day and age is absolutely bizarre. And for the record, I rarely pirate these days. And even then, it’s for digital copies of physical content I already own. But I really don’t give a shit what others do, especially if they’re not hurting common folk. And if you truly think it’s okay not to fully own the digital licenses your purchase, then good for you for keeping those billionaire’s boots clean.
If you don’t understand why some folks pirate by this time, you never will. There are plenty of valid–and not-so-valid–reasons to pirate. If you actually care, just type the question into a search engine, there’s a plethora of well written articles on the subject.
I feel this would work in some areas in the US, i.e. smaller towns, possibly in the residential areas of larger cities. But in rush hour type areas? Hell no, it would be a massacre after people got used to these spaces.
Feels like that keyword phrase would fuck up a lot of legitimate automated messages I actually do want (e.g. pharmacy refills, food delivery, appointment reminders, etc). Regardless, a custom keyword filter would be excellent.
Was it him or Lance Armstrong that ended up getting caught doping? Pretty sure it was the latter, but also recall Phelps getting accused of something. If could’ve even been something irrelevant like marijuana.
Agree with your point, though.
Solar still indirectly creates pollution in the form of production of the materials needed, manufacturing, etc. Also, huge solar farms can have a significant detrimental impact on local ecosystems, in addition to the large amount of waste created from old panels: https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
https://www.popsci.com/environment/solar-farm-construction-epa-water-violations/
It’s still better than ICE, as that also creates waste and actively pollutes, but it’s still notable and hopefully over time those negative byproduct can also be eliminated/significantly reduced.
Most of the problem there is that the aid is being blocked by the combatants. Just a bunch of ruthless barbarians killing innocent civilians.
Last I’d read, there’s no consensus that he actually voted for Trump. Dude’s views were all over the place.
Regardless, if someone takes Trump out, I will literally lose no sleep or tears. I don’t advocate for violence, but MAGA sure as fuck does. Reap what you sow and all that.