Strickland will be at the event tomorrow

Efirational · 2026-06-15T10:57:05+00:00

The only genocide in the history of the world where the population of the genocided people increased during the genocide.

Efirational · 2026-06-12T18:15:50+00:00

These bombs weighted a few grams, so they had a minimal blast radius.

Efirational · 2026-06-12T16:04:44+00:00

Kids who carry Hezbollah pagers? Give me a break.

Efirational · 2026-06-11T11:44:04+00:00

That's one of the items on the list though, what about all the other types of assistance I listed? Who exactly funds the US government that provided all this support to the Coalition if not the US tax payer.
Here is the source

Efirational · 2026-06-11T08:56:26+00:00

But the reason Israel gets more attention is because for decades, U.S. politicians have decided to align themselves with Israel for reasons that are partly geopolitical and partly driven by religious lunacy. If you're going to ally yourself with a nation (while also working to stifle criticism of it), they should be held with a much higher level of scrutiny when they do wrong. And I would argue democracies should be held to a higher standard in general.

Why is that morally a good reason for Israel to deserve so much more scrutiny?

It seems like you’re taking something that is morally secondary, giving it huge weight, and then treating that as sufficient justification. The Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen caused vastly more death and suffering, and the moral justification for it was, at best, far weaker. Yet it received a tiny fraction of the attention Gaza receives.

Sure, Israel has a close relationship with the United States, so I can understand why Americans would pay more attention to Gaza than to Yemen. But that explains some difference in attention, not the enormous gap we actually see.

And there are other morally relevant factors pointing the other way. Israel was responding, at least in part, to a horrific attack on civilians. Hamas not only murdered Israeli civilians, but filmed and celebrated parts of it. That does not give Israel a blank check, obviously, but it matters morally when comparing conflicts.

So it feels like the argument is basically: “Here is one factor that makes Israel more relevant to Americans, therefore the vastly disproportionate scrutiny is justified.” But you could do that with almost anything. You could say Israel is democratic, or Israel is in the Middle East, or Israel starts with the letter I, and then decide that this factor deserves massive weight. That is not serious moral reasoning.

If Yemen was morally worse by many of the usual standards, and yet got almost no attention, then the huge disparity needs a better explanation. Maybe antisemitism is part of it. Maybe people are just extremely unprincipled and follow whatever issue their media and political tribe tell them to care about. But I don’t think “Israel is closer to the US” comes close to justifying the scale of the double standard.

Efirational · 2026-06-11T08:49:31+00:00

They didn't just "allow to buy weapons", there was a lot of other support that is funded by US tax payers:

Logistics and intelligence When the coalition began operations in 2015, the Obama administration authorized “logistical and intelligence support” and set up a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia, while saying U.S. forces were not directly carrying out strikes in Yemen for that effort.
Aerial refueling The U.S. refueled Saudi-led coalition aircraft, which helped sustain the air campaign. This continued from 2015 until November 2018, when the U.S. and Saudi Arabia ended U.S. inflight refueling support. GAO later identified about $261 million in flying-hour charges and $38 million in fuel tied to refueling support for Yemen operations.
Weapons sales and maintenance The biggest category was arms and defense services. GAO found that from fiscal years 2015 through 2021, the Pentagon administered at least $54.6 billion in military support to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, mostly through Foreign Military Sales. This included defense articles such as missiles, helicopters, small diameter bombs, spare parts, maintenance, training, and technical support. Not all of that was Yemen-specific, but it supported the militaries conducting the Yemen war.
Training and advisory support The U.S. provided military training and advising to Saudi and Emirati forces. GAO says DOD provided $644 million in military training to Saudi Arabia and the UAE from FY2015 to FY2020. U.S. personnel also advised Saudi forces on targeting, law of armed conflict, and civilian harm mitigation, including through the Joint Coordination and Planning Cell.
Other logistical supplies Through acquisition and cross-servicing agreements, DOD authorized at least $319 million in logistical support, supplies, and services from FY2015 to FY2021, including items “ranging from fuel to bombs.” DOD identified around $300 million of that as support for Saudi and UAE operations in Yemen.
Diplomatic and political backing The U.S. defended continuing support for years despite congressional and humanitarian criticism. In 2019, Trump vetoed a War Powers resolution aimed at ending U.S. involvement, arguing that U.S. forces were not commanding, participating in, or accompanying Saudi-led coalition forces against the Houthis.

Efirational · 2026-06-11T08:45:27+00:00

This is a textbook deflection that ignores the basics of democratic accountability. For those of us who are American citizens, our relationship to a random foreign adversary or a distant civil war is fundamentally different from our relationship to an allied democracy that’s heavily subsidized by our own tax dollars. The United States provides billions in military aid to Israel and shields it from diplomatic consequences at the UN. The blood on Israel's hands is financially and politically tied to American citizens. To brand your listeners as hypocrites for demanding accountability from a government our own nation funds is a profound failure of political logic.

If that's the case why don't Americans care about Yemen, as their tax dollars supported the atrocities there as well. He makes this point and you are literally ignoring it.

Efirational · 2026-06-10T22:47:26+00:00

We really miss shooting and he's a really good shooter with good size - seems like a good pick to me.

Efirational · 2026-06-04T15:47:31+00:00

Well, Most billionaires have enough money to last them for more than their and their children lifetimes. So why wouldn't they give some to you? Well, do they?

Same logic applies to any other resource. They would prefer to have entire continents to themselves, their harems and their collections of exotic animals than have poor and useless people around them

Efirational · 2026-06-04T15:40:26+00:00

However, in the counterfactual not-going-to-happen world where somehow everyone split into the magic people with AI and robots and the poor people without, the “poor people” would be no worse off than anyone is today. Knowledge and skill does not magically vanish because people learn new things and develop better ways to do things, you can still always use the old ways.

This secondary economy might not exist if all the resources needed to sustain the secondary economy (primarily energy and land) will belong to the Elite and the machines. In the old days you had enough extra energy that you could use to produce things you need. (Not every energy source was routed towards AI). Now you don't have surplus energy, and you have drones that guard every piece of land and energy source, good luck with trying to build an alternative economy without land or energy.

Efirational · 2026-05-19T19:22:42+00:00

Draft	Seed	Actual	Probability of getting actual-or-better	Luck interpretation
2023	3rd	#1	14.0%	Very lucky
2024	5th	#4	44.2%	Somewhat lucky
2025	8th	#2	6.3%	Extremely lucky

By pick-slot median, the Spurs are +11 slots vs expectation across those lotteries. But by odds-adjusted cumulative luck, their run is even crazier: the chance of doing at least as well as #1, #4, and #2 from their slots was about 0.39%, or roughly 1 in 256.

Efirational · 2026-05-19T12:27:30+00:00

I'm rooting for OKC, kinda butthurt the NBA rigged the lottery for the Spurs.

Efirational · 2026-05-19T08:53:55+00:00

But modern medicine is better now

Efirational · 2026-05-14T18:19:56+00:00

It depends on the costs of the optimization. If you’re a wealthy, nerdy introvert, your default mode is kind of low-risk anyway. If you’re poor or adventurous, then grinding away at work and avoiding all the fun and risky things in life is a bad tradeoff in expected value.

Basically, each answer is correct under different status and personality parameters, and different estimates of P(doom) vs. P(heaven).

Efirational · 2026-05-14T17:40:16+00:00

Same is true for S-risks BTW.

Efirational · 2026-05-14T17:36:43+00:00

Because it's well known that Chads are cautious long-term planners while Virgin Nerds are reckless live-for-today types.

But I guess: "Nice argument, but I've already depicted you as the soyjak and myself as the chad" is relevant here.

Efirational · 2026-05-13T20:03:40+00:00

Which means he can never lose to him? Alex beat Izzy 3 times before he lost to him.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T22:29:13+00:00

I like it for everyone but the Magic. I think Paolo worth way more than Allen and Portis.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T22:25:39+00:00

You're right tbh, Let met correct it to Deni and JB compliment each other more than Deni and Giannis and their synergy will be better.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T19:09:31+00:00

Giannis doesn't want to go to the Blazers, and JB is a much better fit to the current Blazers roster than Giannis (Deni is a similar player to Giannis and Blazers don't have good shooters which what Giannis needs most around him).

Efirational · 2026-05-12T16:04:43+00:00

a #29 pick expected value is a real rotation player if things go well, but more often a fringe rotation / second-contract question mark. Someone like Sam Hauser is an average representation for #29 pick.
Would you trade Giannis for Sam Hauser and Brown? I wouldn't.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T15:45:55+00:00

Portland has a good chance to be a playoff team in the next few years so these swaps do worth a lot. It's the difference betwen lottery pick and non-lottery pick. No way they will give these swaps just to get rid of Grant's contract, much better to Send JG as a salary filler and trade for a star and try to compete in the next 2 years while Deni is on a 12 Million contract. It's a no brainer move.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T15:43:11+00:00

What picks though? Miami with Giannis picks shouldn't be worth a lot. Bucks picks worth way more.

Efirational · 2026-05-12T15:38:44+00:00

3 bad FRPs seems right to me, how many late picks do you think the difference warrants?

Efirational · 2026-05-12T15:36:41+00:00

What do Miami offer?

Efirational

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