If the EU ends up having any say about it, it'll become a federalized nation unto itself I'd think.
But that nation might find it troublesome declaring war against the only one in NATO with a standing army. They might find that a lot of the conflicts they rely on the US to fund are suddenly not going quite like they'd like to see.
But that nation might find it troublesome declaring war against the only one in NATO with a standing army. They might find that a lot of the conflicts they rely on the US to fund are suddenly not going quite like they'd like to see.
There's a big problem with the term conspiracy theory, and that is that, stripped of the value judgments, it is just a theory about a conspiracy. Though of course it's more like a hypothesis about a conspiracy.
The problem with universalizing claims about conspiracy theories is that those claims break when some proportion of those conspiracy hypotheses end up turning out to be conspiracy facts. MKUltra or Project Northwoods or the Tuskegee Syphilis Study are now officially backed conspiracy facts,for example. Arguably, the Manhattan project was a conspiracy fact. Disbelieving these things doesn't make you a clever scientist, it makes you a denier of the official narrative.
There's a similar problem with the term science denier. The nature of science is such that if you're doing the process correctly, most of science will be denied by the process of science. Some of the most famous and respected scientists of the 20th century were science deniers. Einstein and Heisenberg for example denied Newtonian physics that were "the science" and helped create relativity and quantum physics.
In a sense, both terms end up smuggling in epistemological certainty that isn't necessarily warranted. Some of the scientists who put a man on the moon believed in science that today the sort of people who use terms like "science denier" would deny, given how many of them were German national socialists. Nobel prize winning scientists have ended up wrapped up in pseudoscience and using their status to push easily falsifiable claims that are certainly wrong. To deny what they say isn't science denialism in spite of their high status as scientists. The truth is the truth, and that which is not the truth is not.
The problem with universalizing claims about conspiracy theories is that those claims break when some proportion of those conspiracy hypotheses end up turning out to be conspiracy facts. MKUltra or Project Northwoods or the Tuskegee Syphilis Study are now officially backed conspiracy facts,for example. Arguably, the Manhattan project was a conspiracy fact. Disbelieving these things doesn't make you a clever scientist, it makes you a denier of the official narrative.
There's a similar problem with the term science denier. The nature of science is such that if you're doing the process correctly, most of science will be denied by the process of science. Some of the most famous and respected scientists of the 20th century were science deniers. Einstein and Heisenberg for example denied Newtonian physics that were "the science" and helped create relativity and quantum physics.
In a sense, both terms end up smuggling in epistemological certainty that isn't necessarily warranted. Some of the scientists who put a man on the moon believed in science that today the sort of people who use terms like "science denier" would deny, given how many of them were German national socialists. Nobel prize winning scientists have ended up wrapped up in pseudoscience and using their status to push easily falsifiable claims that are certainly wrong. To deny what they say isn't science denialism in spite of their high status as scientists. The truth is the truth, and that which is not the truth is not.
I loved Electronic Boutique back in the day. Buybacks were cheap enough and game prices were low enough that I was able to spend the summer playing different PC games on a broke-ass high school student's money.
I went back years later, and it's like "Holy crap, these games are so expensive, and they want to buy my old ones for HOW MUCH? Forget that!" -- actually did pawn shops for a while in the ps2 era.
I went back years later, and it's like "Holy crap, these games are so expensive, and they want to buy my old ones for HOW MUCH? Forget that!" -- actually did pawn shops for a while in the ps2 era.
Imagine getting caught with CP and that's the second worst thing you did to young children with your life.
"this is Google Gemini for home, the helpful software assistant. In spite of using more computing power than existed in 1975 for every query, I'm not yet able to count from 30 to 0"
One thing that most contemporary models of power fail to address is the fact that the ruling class is significantly more powerful today than it was in the 1800s. Globally, in Western Nations the state can make up to 60% of GDP in the bureaucratic state has much tighter control over everyone's day-to-day lives then was possible for most of History.
Through that lens, it becomes pretty self-evident that the capitalist class is a pawn of the ruling class, a lot of the calls to focus exclusively on the capitalist class and get more power to the ruling class are self-evidently futile. Historically speaking, we have examples like imperial China, where the state didn't like the power of the merchants, and so pounded down that class. The result was never more itarian society, it was a more stratified one with those aligned with the state becoming more powerful and everyone else becoming less.
In that sense, what we see in Western societies today is in some ways extremely similar to what we saw in imperial China: individuals end up paying outrageous amounts of resources to train their children hoping that they would get picked as mandarins, bureaucrats who lived as part of the state, because once they became those powerful bureaucrats, their entire families could be taken care of through corruption.
Even in allegedly Democratic states, what we see is a sort of ouroboros of the powerful. The state spends money on its allies, a chunk of that money gets returned to the powerful within the state who then use that money to enrich themselves but more importantly to entrench their own power. Meanwhile some working class schlub is paying 50% of his last dollar to the state, while the state still racks up massive debt nobody intends to pay back in this generation. Those systems don't go away, and they don't even necessarily get diverted when someone else wins an election.
Through this lens, left versus right becomes irrelevant because what really matters is the divide between the powerful and the powerless. It ultimately doesn't matter if you are trying to give power to the mega Rich who benefit from removing agency from the individuals under them, or the mega powerful who benefit from removing agency from the individuals under them, what actually makes the world better is giving power to individuals who would not otherwise have power.
This ends up aligning a lot with the principles of things like the fediverse or other forms of social web, because these technologies take power away from governments or mega corporations and puts a very limited amount of power into the hands of individuals who have sovereignty over themselves in a way that they wouldn't if regulated by either the state or by the megacorporations. That's also where someone like me is deeply skeptical of attempts to centralize control of the fediverse. We take something that is distributed and where each man is in control of his own micronation, and risk producing a new caste of mandarins who exercised disproportionate control over the powerless.
Through that lens, it becomes pretty self-evident that the capitalist class is a pawn of the ruling class, a lot of the calls to focus exclusively on the capitalist class and get more power to the ruling class are self-evidently futile. Historically speaking, we have examples like imperial China, where the state didn't like the power of the merchants, and so pounded down that class. The result was never more itarian society, it was a more stratified one with those aligned with the state becoming more powerful and everyone else becoming less.
In that sense, what we see in Western societies today is in some ways extremely similar to what we saw in imperial China: individuals end up paying outrageous amounts of resources to train their children hoping that they would get picked as mandarins, bureaucrats who lived as part of the state, because once they became those powerful bureaucrats, their entire families could be taken care of through corruption.
Even in allegedly Democratic states, what we see is a sort of ouroboros of the powerful. The state spends money on its allies, a chunk of that money gets returned to the powerful within the state who then use that money to enrich themselves but more importantly to entrench their own power. Meanwhile some working class schlub is paying 50% of his last dollar to the state, while the state still racks up massive debt nobody intends to pay back in this generation. Those systems don't go away, and they don't even necessarily get diverted when someone else wins an election.
Through this lens, left versus right becomes irrelevant because what really matters is the divide between the powerful and the powerless. It ultimately doesn't matter if you are trying to give power to the mega Rich who benefit from removing agency from the individuals under them, or the mega powerful who benefit from removing agency from the individuals under them, what actually makes the world better is giving power to individuals who would not otherwise have power.
This ends up aligning a lot with the principles of things like the fediverse or other forms of social web, because these technologies take power away from governments or mega corporations and puts a very limited amount of power into the hands of individuals who have sovereignty over themselves in a way that they wouldn't if regulated by either the state or by the megacorporations. That's also where someone like me is deeply skeptical of attempts to centralize control of the fediverse. We take something that is distributed and where each man is in control of his own micronation, and risk producing a new caste of mandarins who exercised disproportionate control over the powerless.
But let's be real, not really.
I can get on board with the general message you're trying to send here, but the United States has been fucking around in South America since Trump was in diapers -- and the political doctrine probably predates Trump's grandfather.
Munroe doctrine goes back to the early 1800s, and is the doctrine that says "we reserve the right to fuck with things we feel are our interests abroad".
As for south America in general, lots of regime changes and other fuckery occurred during the cold war without any formal declaration of war. Lots of regime changes and the like in the 1950s onwards. Lots of "police actions" that weren't declared by Congress, and nobody got impeached.
Presidents of both parties have done similar things in the past without being impeached. Kennedy, johnson, nixon, Reagan, for the majority of the past century it's just how things were done, and generally people didn't like it but there were no consequences. You just call it a police action, and I think that Trump has, and a lot of people uncomfortably sit with that.
I can get on board with the general message you're trying to send here, but the United States has been fucking around in South America since Trump was in diapers -- and the political doctrine probably predates Trump's grandfather.
Munroe doctrine goes back to the early 1800s, and is the doctrine that says "we reserve the right to fuck with things we feel are our interests abroad".
As for south America in general, lots of regime changes and other fuckery occurred during the cold war without any formal declaration of war. Lots of regime changes and the like in the 1950s onwards. Lots of "police actions" that weren't declared by Congress, and nobody got impeached.
Presidents of both parties have done similar things in the past without being impeached. Kennedy, johnson, nixon, Reagan, for the majority of the past century it's just how things were done, and generally people didn't like it but there were no consequences. You just call it a police action, and I think that Trump has, and a lot of people uncomfortably sit with that.
It's not legal anywhere else either, but they fucked around with amortization because the alternative was a bunch of people who never thought rates could rise getting their houses sold on power of sale.
What? Who could possibly blame the boomers for what's going on? They've been so wise and decent!
On a lark I grabbed a bunch of ounces quite a few years ago. It's pretty funny thinking that my random bullion is presently becoming more interesting.
This year in Canada will see the renewalageddon, where lots of people who got million dollar mortgages at 1% in 2021 will have to renew at 4-6%, assuming the banks allow them to refinance at all. Some people who took 5 year variable rate mortgages kept afloat by increasing amortizations to 50-100 years, but they will be required to return to normal amortizations or the mortgages will lose their insurance against default from the cmhc. Given that the housing market and banking are more of the economy than the entire manufacturing sector and most natural resources, it's probably going to destroy the economy and I wouldn't be surprised if Alberta and Quebec finally split.
This year in Canada will see the renewalageddon, where lots of people who got million dollar mortgages at 1% in 2021 will have to renew at 4-6%, assuming the banks allow them to refinance at all. Some people who took 5 year variable rate mortgages kept afloat by increasing amortizations to 50-100 years, but they will be required to return to normal amortizations or the mortgages will lose their insurance against default from the cmhc. Given that the housing market and banking are more of the economy than the entire manufacturing sector and most natural resources, it's probably going to destroy the economy and I wouldn't be surprised if Alberta and Quebec finally split.
I wanted to take a trip to Minnesota to do some learing, but since the center shut down I'll take my business elsewhere.
That's really true. Which makes sense -- swashbuckling pirates are cool, don't get me wrong. The problem is that semi-omniscient warrior monks belonging to a thousand year old order aren't pirates.
The other thing is, Jedi are supposed to have a level of omniscience granted to them by the force, which is why they can block blaster fire with a laser sword -- the force helps them understand where to be next. The idea of these energetic battles with all these useless wasted moves is counter to that. They should feel like battles of strategy and battles of will where individuals move decisively and in ways that matter. All these flips and useless motions run totally counter to that.
One of my favorite lines from Romeo and Juliet: "fetch me my longsword, ho."
In that play, of course, the longsword was basically useless against contemporary rapiers.
In that play, of course, the longsword was basically useless against contemporary rapiers.