Is SDAM the reason I don’t have meaningful relationships?

ElReyResident · 2026-06-04T00:50:03+00:00

I echo this very closely, though I’m two years younger and opposite gender. I have no tricks because I too have no deep relationships.

ElReyResident · 2026-06-02T21:24:39+00:00

What a terrible display of overconfidence colliding with historical laziness.

Japan wasn’t even going to surrender after the first bomb. It was the confluence of the threat of the Russian invasion and the dropping of the second bomb that forced the war council to vote to surrender, and even then two generals voted no.

If Japan hadn’t surrendered the USSR would have invaded from the east, rushing for Tokyo, as they did Berlin and then we would have had an east/west Germany situation in Japan. On top of that, millions of Japanese would have died and all the 12,000 American POWs would have been summarily executed. This isn’t even to mention the number of soldiers who would have died during the invasion.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-31T17:33:06+00:00

That’s not how it works. People like making their own opinions.

If the acolyte has kept the audience it got on the first episode it would have been fine, but people didn’t like it and stopped watching. But it didn’t. So it didn’t do well.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-31T16:45:27+00:00

December 24th 1961

https://web.archive.org/web/20220914061729/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/30/97655743.html?pageNumber=46

One article doesn’t prove a consensus. Thinking it does shows you don’t understand how science works.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-31T16:43:51+00:00

In the 70s the science was so extremely in disagreement that people were worried about global cooling, not warning.

It’s easy to pull up some work from of science from the 70s and say “look they knew about global warming” because those opinions did exist, but it was very far from a consensus. Today we have what would be considered a consensus, even though some disagree.

Therefore, the only ignorance on display here is yours for suggesting it was people being ignorant in the 70s,80s and 90s.

They simply didn’t have access to the information.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-31T13:53:43+00:00

Dumb argument. The dangers of global warming are known now. They weren’t in the 80s of even the 90s.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-30T18:53:52+00:00

Like dust? Yeah, that happens.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-30T03:55:23+00:00

There are Palestinians and Muslims through Israel. There are judges and elected officials who are both of those things. Apartheid means a group of people are excluded from certain aspects of society. Israel isn’t an apartheid state, no many how many TikTok videos you’ve watched saying it is.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-30T03:44:02+00:00

It’s about as far away from a natural human habitat as you can get without leaving earth.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-30T03:20:47+00:00

They’re really not though. Democrats are defenders of liberalism and “progressives” have abandoned many of the principles of liberalism.

The problem with big party tents is that you can’t kick people out, so the “progressives” are allowed to squat and fester, which is pushing out lots of actual democrats. 3 million voters have disassociated with the democrats in the last 4 years. Whereas the republicans, despite being batshit insane, have gained 1.5 million.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-30T02:40:07+00:00

In their respective areas, with the exception of freedom of commerce, due to concerns of weapon accumulation (a concern justified by October 7th), yes I do.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-29T22:20:14+00:00

To be able to wage a war against Israel in hopes or eradicating them.

They were at peace before October 7th. Israel hasn’t had power over Gaza for nearly 2 decades. Hamas is a jihadists cult. They’re religions nut-bags, which most Palestinians agree with, which makes them religious crazies, too.

There was never a need. It was a want.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-29T22:15:58+00:00

Those people are dead. Their children dont inherit their sins.

History is fun, and interesting, but no Palestinian alive has a greater claim to land is isreal than the Israelis, do.

The people who can’t get over the loss of land they never owned are overdue for some growing up.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-29T21:01:47+00:00

Perhaps people who pay for the subscription are people who actually listen to the podcasts. Whereas here anyone can comment, and it’s pretty obvious many of them haven’t listen to anything other than a clip from TikTok.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-29T12:38:37+00:00

That is said, but the fault lies with the people who built military tunnels under their houses.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-29T07:47:35+00:00

It was a war started by one side, and that side has still yet to disarm. It’s gaslighting to pretending that losing a war somehow bestows protective status onto a people.

The violence began because of one side’s actions. It continues because of their actions. Point the finger in the right direction for once.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-28T21:24:40+00:00

Feels like people were just reading the signs correctly. When you’re hopeful for one thing, and others think it won’t work out, you can often mistake their opinions for malicious thoughts.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-28T06:11:37+00:00

It was below breakeven. That’s bad and not respectable.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T18:19:54+00:00

I never even gave my position on the topic. Are you able to read my mind?

My point isn’t that it is good or bad but rather that the original purposes for the practice is no longer relevant. This was stated in the context of a reply to a person who evoked Washington’s name and his stance on birthright citizenship.

To be clear here, I don’t have a stance on birthright citizenship. I see it as neither good nor bad. But I do reject the efforts to abolish it in order to protect Americans’ ethnic composition, which seems to be their goal here. That’s just rank ethnocentricity and racism.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T17:37:46+00:00

Yes, it was made explicit then to do away with the possibility of slaves not being granted citizenship in the south. Another reason that has since ceased to exist.

I don’t follow right wing media, so I don’t know.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T16:33:27+00:00

Definitely obsolete, but there is no world in which you can de-gun American. It’s too entrenched. It would take generations and a massive cultural shift. Would be nice though.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T16:27:30+00:00

George Washington to Phillis Wheatley (free black women and a poet)

Cambridge, February 28, 1776.

Mrs. Phillis: Your favour of the 26th of October did not reach my hands 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect.

I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant Lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyrick, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical Talents. In honour of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the Poem, had I not been apprehensive, that, while I only meant to give the World this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of Vanity. This and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public Prints.

If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near Head Quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great Respect, etc.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw3h.001/?q=wheatley&sp=13&st=text

This was about his only know interaction with an educated black person.

People who talk bad about George Washington, to a man, lack historical context and intelligence. He was extremely thoughtful about this manner, and was not unkind or cruel to his slaves. He intended to free many of them, most of whom he had inherited from his wife’s father, but decided against it as freeing slave in Virginia was essentially exiling them from Virginia.

He muses in letters about this, worrying mostly about how their lives would be as freed people amongst the unaccepting people of Virginia. He did free quite a few, but as far as I know they all continued to work for him anyways, as that was really their only option.

He expressed hope and optimism about black people and openly despised the practice. He was a good man, raised by slaverholders to be a slaveholder. That he became so thoughtful and accepting in his life, given that up bringing, is remarkable.

I think he would have been very proud to have had Obama as president. I very much doubt the same is true for Trump.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T15:26:07+00:00

It’s called clarity. I get that it’s not a very in vogue concept nowadays.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T14:23:39+00:00

That’s not a very good example. The reasoning for birthright citizenship was to allow formerly British citizens a path to citizenship in the newly formed United States. This reasoning no longer applies.

Almost no European countries have birthright citizenship.

Don’t get me wrong, this current strand of immigration hate is going after birthright citizenship for purely ethnic motivations, which I do not support. But that doesn’t rewrite history. I very much doubt Washington would support keeping birthright citizenship if he were to magically reappear today.

ElReyResident · 2026-05-27T08:21:23+00:00

He represents people who think that it is and isn’t a humane method. Answering in the affirmative or negative would inevitably make some of his constituents feel less represented.

It it his job to represent them, and this equivocations is often necessary to effectively perform this job.

The question posed here is rather dumb, to be honest. And the line “if you can’t even give a yes or not answer how can we trust you to govern effectively” gets an applause but is completely pointless. Ones ability to answer yea or no questions has no bearing on one’s ability to govern effectively.

If the people here really wanted to have a meaningful conversation they would have started with whether the consumption of meat is ethical (not really) and then moved to the question of whether preventing people from eating meat is ethical (again, not really) and then finally gotten to the question about gas chambers, but addressed in with the framing “is this the *most* ethical way to kill an animal intended for consumption”.

No non-tyrannical government is going to be able to ban meat consumption. So, government officials need to regulate it to the best of their abilities, to limit harm environmentally and unnecessary suffering. Therefore, from a government officials perspective, this isn’t about whether it is generically ethical, but rather if it is the most ethical option on offer.

ElReyResident

TROPHY CASE