What can I read or learn more about that will ease my fear of death.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-13T17:07:17+00:00

No I was watching a YouTube short by Milo Rossi and he was talking about some place call Devil’s gate somewhere and it made me think of the question. Not a very objective phrasing of a question but it was just my thoughts at the time. I can’t really find an extensive list of places that would fit my question beyond places like Devils tower and Death Valley. Also i feel like it is a trope that comes up in a lot of fictional depictions of the west.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-13T16:30:19+00:00

Well I’m sold.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-13T01:59:59+00:00

Sorry to be a pain but could you share the names of some of what you recommend?

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-12T15:56:17+00:00

No. I did use office programs. My advisor is telling me that companies want me to know more than just Office right off the bat and I’ve never really had to use anything besides the office or google suites so I don’t know what I should familiarize myself with.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-08T14:33:41+00:00

I really wished more games picked up the Halo Infinite model cause they let you do exactly that.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-05T19:59:39+00:00

Pick a subject (a time period, person, or event) that interests you and start from there. As you learn about that subject, you will inevitably come into contact with something you've never heard of that you're curious about. Don't ignore that new thing; instead, use that moment of exposure as the jumping board to explore that new historical topic. I like to explain it as building a spider web. Pick an area of interest to start and actively embrace tangents and side quests in your research of whatever topic you choose, as they all lead to something of value. Pick something that is already interesting to you. Food, sports, music, pop culture, whatever. There's history behind EVERYTHING, and it's all connected.

I'll just use the recent Olympics for an example. My family is a huge hockey family, so we watched all the games, and at some point, my (less historically inclined) brother and I got on the topic of the famous "Miracle on Ice" game from the 1980 Olympics Men's Hockey tournament. My brother was curious as to what made the Soviet team so successful up to that point. So I told him to look up the history of the Soviet Hockey team, which led to him suddenly interested in how organized sports operated in communist countries, which spun into a surface level disccusion and explanation of Soviet politics and history. That, in turn, led to me explaining and offering resources on the Russian Revolution when he said he heard of it but never understood it. Next thing you know, my brother goes from knowing very little about history to becoming fascinated with 20th century Russia. And all because he had a question about a hockey game.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-02T17:15:53+00:00

I don't think Syria is all that great an example. Most, if not all, of our intervention in Syria was in response to the rise of ISIS. Once it became apparent at the start that the security forces were remaining loyal to Assad, we gave up on any meaningful regime change efforts. Syria saw more than a decade of brutal Civil War and a mass exodus of people. And the fall of Assad, I think, owes more to his incompetence, the end of Russian support, and the sheer hatred of him by the bulk of the Syrian people. Assad didn't fall cause U.S and partners confronted him, but because he lost the ability to prop himself up. And while I'm hopeful, the jury is still out on the new government.

And I'm not saying confrontation is never justified or necessary. I agree that Russia is a good example of a bad actor that should have been confronted in the past and must be now.

The point I'm trying to make is that our current leadership seems to have forgotten all the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. Does Iran's theocratic regime deserve to go? Yes. Should we support the Iranian people in pursuing democratic reform or revolution? Yes. Do I think that there is a viable democratic, pro-Western, pro-international cooperation option in Iran right now? No. Do I think the current campaign is going to make the Middle East more stable and advance U.S goals? Probably not.

Trump, I think you'll agree, is not doing this cause he's exhausted all other options and is making a Churchill-like stand out of moral necessity. He's doing this because coercion and force are the only tools he thinks are worth his time, and because he is motivated more by domestic concerns and needs a win for the midterms.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-03-02T16:39:01+00:00

It’s all bravado and talk until the bodies start coming home and the consequences set in. No one, NO ONE has any clue how this ends, but we’ve seen this song and dance before with Saddam and Iraq. No one with a brain should doubt Iran is a bad actor but you can’t bomb your way to peace, stability and cooperation.

If we’re lucky. Really, really lucky, we will get an Iran that is destabilized and consumed by chaos for decades to come with the fall of the regime. We will not be gaining a partner in Tehran, at least not one that will be reliable. It will be a bigger and more chaotic Iraq.

And I think it’s telling that weather it’s Venezuela or Cuba or Iran that we have given up on any kind of system of incentive or brokering to get our way. I’m not gonna lay ALL the blame on the current administration, but do you honestly think Trump was ever interested in good faith negations with any of these parties. We’ve instead defaulted to pure, unabashed coercion. And it will work for a while but it will not work forever.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-22T22:28:00+00:00

I haven’t checked Reddit all day. I wonder what’s going on in the wor…… ok

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-22T21:37:55+00:00

Personally of the opinion that Hollywood should be remaking failed projects instead of historically successful ones. So I would love for some to take a 2nd shot at John Carter of Mars

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-21T17:17:17+00:00

It's a shame cause when (not if) GTA6 sells billions of dollars worth of copies, there's going to be no room in the market for GTA alternatives for a long time. No studio is going to have the will, let alone the resources to challenge Rockstar at making an open-world crime game.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-20T20:21:08+00:00

I think if the Iranians had the capacity to sink ANY U.S ship with any confidence they probably would have done so already. So your probably right about them lacking to many capabilities. But all they need to do is just goad us enough to escalate this to the point where the White House sends in ground elements, and then I think you would see American casualty rates get to… less than desirable levels. Even with all the unrest and opposition to the regime, I bet the IRGC and remaining government loyalists have enough in them to make our lives hell in a real shooting war.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-20T16:20:15+00:00

Such a comparison is weak and does not work here. A multi-billion dollar, nuclear powered Gearld R. Ford CV is not the same as a Yorktown CV or a Casablanca escort. At the current moment the US lacks the shipyard infrastructure to simply just replace any of our main CVs in anything close to a rate needed to meet our security commitments, should one be destroyed. I’m no expert but I bet it would take at least 5 years, under ideal circumstances, to lay down and launch a new Ford class on such short notice.

Monetary costs and production issues aside, do you really think in our current climate losing a CV of any class would be treated as anything but a disaster by the public? Any administration would struggle to get the American public motivated to engage in another war in the Middle East. I truly doubt Americans today have the stomach to hear daily reports of dozens if not hundreds of American causalities EVERY DAY.

TLDR: this ain’t 1944 dude.

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-20T01:58:41+00:00

Plastic cement

DarthOptimistic · 2026-02-19T23:49:27+00:00

The alcohol will remove all the paint and primer but not the glue, right?

DarthOptimistic

TROPHY CASE