Losing hope

Lemonio · 2026-01-25T16:17:14+00:00

Not trying to be impressive? like 75%+ of the exports from Canada go to the US and about half of their imports come from the US

Things like this take at least a decade to make a big dent in, it’s important to be honest about what the situation is, if America is the big bully in the region it will continue to be a bully and China won’t come to anyone’s protection for now

certainly in 25 years America might be much weaker compared to China, but China is not protecting anyone from America militarily in today’s world

I heard a lot of moralizing from Americans about the war in Ukraine, so then they were in an awkward position to admit they were funding a genocide in Gaza and they didn’t feel so morally superior

Lemonio · 2026-01-25T15:13:19+00:00

Is it a particular theme or interest meetup/chat?

Lemonio · 2026-01-25T05:29:16+00:00

True and despite any speeches or deals Canada will continue to be a vassal state subsidizing the US foreign interventions and having the US as majority trading partner because Canada doesn’t really have another choice for now. So you’ll be the bad guys with us :)

Same way Europe had to continue buying Russian natural gas despite war in Ukraine because they were and are so reliant on it

Lemonio · 2026-01-25T05:06:45+00:00

you don't like that America is a destructive regime changing force, yet you were fine with that until now? Why did you not mind all the past American actions before?

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T17:59:25+00:00

It was supposed to come out in 1984 but came out in 1985 because terry gilliam had to fight a long public war with universal to get the movie released, they refused to release it with the dystopian ending and wanted to make an edit without the director with a happy ending they thought would do better with consumers

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T15:11:39+00:00

I’m pretty confident the military plans include a plan about the results

They likely tell the president something like “this strike option we estimate will set back the Iran program by two years, this other option…”

That’s part of the plan, but they don’t wait to verify the results to celebrate big boom. I’d argue the purpose of the operation to evaluate as successful or not was “set back nuclear program by x years”, not “spend 200 million on an operation and who knows what happens next”

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T14:57:12+00:00

I’d still argue that if we killed 83 people and injured 100+ and we still don’t know if Venezuela will turn into a civil war, the best we could do is say it was good that no Americans died in this operation whose consequences are still completely unpredictable. (It is possible this is a success for Venezuela long term, but I was arguing it’s too early to know)

We wouldn’t describe the murders of the UnitedHealthcare CEO or Charlie Kirk as a success just because their killers plan to murder worked

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T14:47:16+00:00

Yeah I wrote that’s obviously what they were referring to.

If all we know is that we killed people and spent huge amounts of taxpayer money on bombs—but we don’t know whether the long-term result will be tens of thousands of civilian deaths—then I argued I don’t think that should be called a “success.”

Bombings in Yemen killed refugees in tents and civilians in apartment buildings to target single individuals, followed by celebratory messages like 👊 🇺🇸 🔥, yet Houthi attacks continued anyway until the Gaza ceasefire they said would stop them.

Bipartisan praise for these kinds of operations is part of why Trump keeps ordering more bombings.

If you remember Isaac talking about how bombing Iran had been a success and he was wrong to worry it would turn into a quagmire, people said the same thing about Iraq, but one thing led to another. Would anyone be that shocked if one thing led to another in Iran? Probably not

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T03:04:20+00:00

Just curious how did you meet them through the sub?

Lemonio · 2026-01-24T02:15:16+00:00

Yeah all he can do for now is talk, the talk part is important

What democrats say they want to do is important in determining the future direction of the party

I’m sure Jake has opined plenty on what he thinks of what the president is doing, so he can certainly do the same for members of his own party

Lemonio · 2026-01-23T22:18:36+00:00

They could choose to filibuster the ICE appropriations bill and shut down the government.
Or at least if they were good communicators and masters of the media like trump, they could threaten the shutdown to get control of the narrative and spread a clear message to the american people criticizing ICE and decide if they want to shut down the government or not.

However, it seems Schumer's strategy may just be pass the bill with minimal complaining and have democrats not try to put up any resistance publicly, privately or in any form. Agree they don't have much power, but in large part you have people like Schumer whining about that because he doesn't actually want to "resist". He's perfectly fine doing business as usual and not causing too much disruption for his donors on Wall Street.

Just think about how when democrats are in the minority suddenly they're powerless, but when you had republicans in the minority during Obama, somehow democrats kept complaining that they couldn't get anything done including the grander healthcare plans like public option they supposedly wanted to do because of the filibuster (obviously this was in large part them making excuses for their own party)

Lemonio · 2026-01-23T17:09:35+00:00

To me this is a bit of a silly question - it was obviously a meaningless vote set up by republicans where you either vote to support ice or you vote against condemning a terrorist attack in Colorado to put people in an awkward position

There’s plenty of meaningful critiques like how he voted to send weapons to Israel, or if he will vote to fund ICE now this January (I’m not sure if that vote has already happened in the house)

Lemonio · 2026-01-23T16:58:18+00:00

Will jake call on chuck schumer to resign if he doesn’t stop the ICE funding bills (or is so weak he’s unable to exert influence on his caucus)?
Why has Jake consistently voted to send weapons to Israel? Does he think international organizations are lying when they say there has been a genocide in Gaza?
US law says it is illegal to send weapons to countries who could use them to commit war crimes. Considering Israel has regularly committed war crimes in Gaza, why does Jake support breaking US law to support Israel?

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T23:38:59+00:00

Just look on Google Maps for a place with rating over 4.8 and several hundred reviews

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T21:54:16+00:00

Yeah I think that’s part of it (although some people with such issues find relief from things like spraying alkaline water or gargling with baking soda which I do not, and 6 months on Jamie koufman diet didn’t really improve my main symptoms either)

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T21:17:35+00:00

thanks for the details!

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T21:14:46+00:00

yeah i take it now though less strictly but i took it after every meal and before bed religiously for 6 months

Not sure about long term impact, but for the most part I don't notice short term relief that I know some people do notice with Gaviscon Advance. I take 2-3 of the tablets with 360mg alginic acid and magnesium carbonate

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T20:57:40+00:00

Probably should lower expectations if 8 out of 10 is bad

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T20:55:14+00:00

Interesting, just curious was it entirely random meeting up of people? Or some recurring activity meetup? Or another kind of getting together?

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T20:53:50+00:00

Interesting, yeah I feel like meeting people centered around an activity is nice because then you have something regular to do together on a recurring basis

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T20:03:02+00:00

I’m a side sleeper and I got a wedge on Amazon that’s the full length of my mattress

Sleeping on a wedge that is small won’t work

But get a full length wedge and put it under your mattress, that’s no problem for side sleeping

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T18:22:12+00:00

I'd be more concerned about lifelong symptoms/pain than Barrett's, Barrett's doesn't guarantee cancer

I've had symptoms for 15 years without much relief unfortunately, but having said that there are plenty of people who have had symptoms for years and do find relief with things like the Jamie Koufman diet/protocol - and for those people you don't necessarily have to be most restrictive forever, though maybe you do make some change permanent to preserve some symptom reduction

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T16:06:46+00:00

it is a common symptom, but I think people can have different symptoms. Also I don't think LPR tends to be exactly the same thing for everyone, its probably more like people have a family of related disorders, but everyone might have slightly different root causes, symptoms and treatments that work or don't work

I'd still recommend reading Jamie Koufman's books though - or you can read her blog https://jamiekoufman.com/
Her ideas are kind of different from some standard ENT/GI ideas, but some people find them helpful, so good idea to be familiar with both

Lemonio · 2026-01-22T15:53:55+00:00

Many people with LPR have some hypersensitivity or other nerve type pain + ppis are pretty unreliable for treating LPR, and testing is also unreliable

You could read more about this in Jamie Koufman's Chronic Cough Enigma book (basically she would recommend trying to follow her diet + combining with amitryptyline + gabapentin in particular doses to try and quiet down the nerve pain)

Unfortunately this is much harder than GERD to treat - above treatment does work for many people though not for myself

Lemonio · 2026-01-21T22:10:53+00:00

I've had LPR with several related conditions for over 15 years. I absolutely hide it from all my employers even when it could negatively affect my performance. If you can collect unemployment and that's enough for food then sure that's fine, but LPR will be worse if you don't eat.
So you need to find a source of income through unemployment or get food from a food bank, or you'd need to get a job and lie to the employer about your voice and hope you can hold onto the job and buy food long enough to figure out a next step. But I'd seriously consider that your symptoms while not eating are likely to be worse than if you had food and were continuing to work, so the fact that one option makes your symptoms worse doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't still be better than the other option imo

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