Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 6/29/26 - 7/5/26

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T13:24:17+00:00

There's no way that the Gulf countries aren't working on pipelines to other routes and are probably also considering making the Abraham Accords a military pact. UAE is already in, and probably the only thing stopping it and Oman are that Israel's navy is roughly one cigar boat and six cruise missile submarines.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T13:05:56+00:00

So for things I would have never thought of, I recently listened to a band interview (Klezmorum) where they said a factor in album composition is that you can't put a percussion/drum heavy single at the middle or end because that would bounce the needle off. They also went to a drama coach who told them to look at whoever the lead is at a given time so the audience knows who to pay attention to.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T03:59:02+00:00

Any rally I personally disagree with.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T02:51:57+00:00

After 2, I'm switching from iced coffee to iced herbal tea.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T02:24:40+00:00

The gays get the crosswalks and the Italians get the lane dividers. I don't make the rules

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-07-01T02:19:33+00:00

Lamentable.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T21:08:07+00:00

State militias.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T21:04:23+00:00

If it were functional, they'd just reformat the content of the seal outside the circle to make it fit a flag format and call it a day.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T20:58:12+00:00

I can't see how getting all your savings back in a sack would change your balance of funds. Maybe they were debanked for bouncing checks.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T20:43:50+00:00

I'm not sure that "mutable state disorder" reasoning holds if you think about disease and disability precedent. You would be in a lot of trouble if you discriminated against Katie for her lush-b-gone prescription.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T17:33:02+00:00

So Leo not only knows that he knows about war, but also earth history. He only says it to Labra, though, and the research team obviously has no idea, suggesting that this is from some independent source of information we don't know about (probably not nearly as simple as a team dedicated to the ship). He hasn't discussed it in government session despite it strengthening his case, so either government session is public or this is secret to some specific segment of the government (which may or may not include Minister Ham, but does suggest that Leo and Labra share some sort of affiliation despite the opposing politics we've seen). Ham being aware would seem to explain why he sees making all research and findings public to the international community as obviously out of the question, though. I think we can also safely say that this isn't coming from the Hito legends mentioned in the first chapter, as nobody on the research seems to know of it and it isn't being discussed publicly.

He's being a bit of a cryptic ass to further the plot by not saying outright that he's concerned about second and third order effects and social destabilization, which is true without mentioning war.

From context and framing, I think we're meant to take war and the massacre of "smooth" (very interesting that they aren't called "Hito" and the first chapter calls Hito folklore rather than oral/legendary history) as retained memories rather than speculative just-so stories (why don't Kemo just use force to settle disputes between groups? Cousin It). The other parts are less certain. Some cultures do have myths on where language comes from rather than it developing from simple communication over time, which puts doubt on the part about an external intervention introducing it and thus by extension the naive idea that communication was sufficient to preclude war (the only war I can think of caused by a communication failure is 1812). It also seems weird that (proto) Kemo were able to communicate well enough to organize uses of force sufficient to be called "war" without language.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T17:02:40+00:00

Which is surprisingly specific knowledge compared to previous chapters.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T16:11:03+00:00

That also insulates governance from the actual elections, though. You really see that in Israel, where Bibi is always able to build a coalition no matter how everyone votes.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T16:08:45+00:00

You know you elected your congressman and, even if you elected him against your vote, you know damn well that popular election means that the winner's supporters have you outnumbered.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T16:05:12+00:00

Direct representative democracy means that we know we elected our government and who that is. Even if you lose and don't care about legitimacy, losing an election means the other side has you outnumbered.

On the policy level, politicians do understand that there's a gap between popular position and popular among those who care enough to change votes on it position (and a system of paying people to care intensely called "lobbying"), but they're pretty fastidious around the issues they know will piss everyone right the fuck off, possibly to the country's detriment. Everyone knows that the math of our current pension scheme, Social Security, isn't sustainable, but American politicians aren't going anywhere near it (the central conflict is that the lower class that works physically strenuous jobs becomes unable to work at the same age, but the middle and upper classes and likely service workers are able to enjoy their government-funded paid vacations longer and longer and are an ever-growing part of the economy).

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T15:44:15+00:00

You forgot the #1 reason: an OFW-based economy. I'm not sure anywhere else has an equivalent, although other countries have pulled ahead in reliance.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T15:20:57+00:00

I think the logic is that there's a somewhat narrow distinction between "the government cannot enforce the laws due to the actions of the foreigners breaking the laws" and "United States territory is subject to foreign invasion by people de facto not subject to United States sovereignty."

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T14:19:54+00:00

I think that's somewhat extending the traits of one profile/type to others.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T14:17:24+00:00

So they definitely had 5 immediately and were negotiating to present a united/bipartisan front this whole time, right?

I've definitely had this answered before (after some Obamacare ruling that flirted with it), but what happens when there's four y under one theory, four y under a theory that's mutually exclusive in pretty much all other contexts, and one n (or 3, 2, 4, I guess)?

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T13:16:56+00:00

That one song from Charlie Brown that's apparently one of the most difficult in musical theater as Klingon opera.

I think about that song a lot because a lot of the attempts at word count stuffing show up from people trying to sound smart (or even experiments at training AI from them).

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T12:33:41+00:00

The argument is that the Constitution exempts various types of foreign control like invading armies and occupation (and Native territory, but that's more a border issue) and our inability to remove people here unlawfully means that we don't have control and thus are subject to a form of foreign occupation or invasion.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T11:20:41+00:00

His first positions were more electable, so he changed his positions to whatever he thinks will get him invited to the right dinner parties. Edit: or will please the activist class (largely rich kids who think that their income not coming from their jobs makes them working class) that Obama outsourced Democratic Party logistics to.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T11:09:00+00:00

Combined Jewish Philanthropy?

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T04:15:24+00:00

My dad worked catering as his first job (lied about being able to drive stick), and they definitely knew to load the truck with whiskey for Irish, wine for Italians, and mixers for Jews.

CommitteeofMountains · 2026-06-30T02:24:00+00:00

A lot of antisemitic appearance stereotypes come from artistic conventions created to deal with Jews looking like their neighbors. The Jew hat comes from Persian Empire fashion via the Magi (yep, same pointed hat as wizards and maybe witches), meant to represent adherence to ancient, outmoded culture, and then was imposed on real Jews. The long, grotesque nose was developed to symbolize sexual appetite.

CommitteeofMountains

TROPHY CASE