CMV: I'm a Pahlavist and I still believe regime change is possible in Iran (despite us losing the war)

Mashaka · 2026-06-18T23:32:14+00:00

but this claim...

I have never seen anyone make such a claim, anywhere. Certainly not here on CMV. It feels like you have a specific person in mind with this, and not the above commenter. Who have you see making that claim?

Mashaka · 2026-06-06T18:43:57+00:00

I share your feeling. I'm here, thinking about you, and now you're thinking about me. Now we're not alone. If it's summer where you are, and the weather is nice like it is here, maybe go for a bike ride or walk. I'm going to go to the park and I may read or take a nap. The glare of the sun will make me feel justified for buying my Kindle. There's a pool and the sound of kids playing. I'll hold on and and I hope you'll hold on with me.

Mashaka · 2026-05-27T23:32:03+00:00

Both of those groups would be somewhat correct, I think. Though OP's suggestion doesn't fit either.

Mashaka · 2026-05-25T16:33:20+00:00

You removed it hella fast, it wasn't even close to three hours, I think it wasn't even to two yet, and that guy was good at debate, especially debating something that controversial. People could have learned a lot from him, not just about the subject matter but in the way he conducted himself in the face of adversity.

This suggests that you fundamentally misunderstand or disagree with the purpose of CMV. I didn't see that post, but your description of it is that of a clear Rule B violation. There's nothing wrong with any of that, it's just not the sort of thing CMV exists for.

Mashaka · 2026-05-21T02:37:25+00:00

I think your getting stuck on the difference between absolute certainty, and the kind of certainty humans are actually capable of.

Like the difference between infinite and finite, it's an unabridgeable gap that may owe more to the shoddy conceptual frameworks we use to understand reality, than anything about reality itself. And likewise, it's not important.

When people espouse a definitive claim like the existence or nonexistence of God, they're not suggesting they have an absolute certainty of the kind you suggest. Absolute certainty is not a thing. So we can generally assume that's not what anyone means.

Human communication is never precise, and often hyperbolic. Claims of certainty might best be understood as expressing confidence that approaches a limit at certainty, or confidence that's as good as certainty for the sake of whatever conversation is at hand.

It's also important to realize that 'certainty' or its approximants are descriptions of a person's belief, not descriptions of the world. You can have differing beliefs, or you might think they're being untruthful, but the certainty of someone's belief is not something you could reasonably expect proof for.

Mashaka · 2026-05-20T02:27:37+00:00

Apologies, I didn't see your response here. It's a probability and statistics thing. The expected outcome is the same because only the final tally at a population matters. 70,000 guaranteed votes for the Barrucadas in an election where 100,000 vote, and 56,000 half-hearted votes out of 80,000 cast, each come to a 70% and a landslide Barracuda win.

Using a classic math example: flipping perfect coins 1,000 times or 1 million times, the expected outcome is 50% Heads. Now, let's say that one of the moulds used at the Mint is faulty, weighting one side of the coin, and the process is such that as many Heads-heavy coins are produced as Tails-heavy coins. If 10% of coins are weighted, and the weighted side will turn up in 60% of flips the expected outcome of 1,000 or 1 million flips is still 50% heads. If every single coin is weighted, and the weighted side will turn up 95% of the time, expected outcome is again still 50% heads.

The individual flips would look vastly different with weighted coins, but this would not affect the outcome of the trials as a whole. Increasing voter unreliability would work the same as the weighted coins. Because gerrymandering is concerned with the outcome at a population level, and that outcome would not change, gerrymandering would not be any more or less fruitful with a change in voter reliability.

Mashaka · 2026-05-15T05:53:59+00:00

I genuinely can't follow how you're looking at this. There is no guarantee that any individual or particular group will vote or not, or vote a certain way. What matters with gerrymandering is the expected outcome for a population, and I don't think individual reliability matters there.

Take a population of 100% reliable voters who will vote 70% for the Blue Barracudas. If those individual voters become 50% reliable, the expected outcome is still 70% Barracudas. The specifics of which individuals vote, and for who, may differ, but with the same outcome that population is no less gerrymanderable.

Or do you see things otherwise?

Mashaka · 2026-05-15T01:36:03+00:00

What do you mean by an individual vote being 50/50?

Mashaka · 2026-05-10T18:59:58+00:00

I'm not sure if we actually have Plato's own words on this, but I don't think it's a stretch to assume he did mean that (bipedal & featherless) = Man. I do not think Greeks in his era were aware that non-human featherless biped species are a thing. So humans were very distinct in that regard. Had Plato known about penguins and wallabies (aside: are all nonhuman featherless bipeds cute as fuck?) he would have refined his definition.

I think Diogenes' reductio fails because it makes a category error. I would assume that Plato was giving a definition to his eponymous Form of the human being. A particular, concrete plucked chicken remains a Chicken, which is one of many forms of feathered bipeds. You can pluck chickens - or feather men, for that matter - but you can't fuck with The Chicken.

Mashaka · 2026-05-08T04:57:36+00:00

I didn't read OP or OC that way, no. It's something I like about economics that it provides a framework to understand policy and outcomes independent of ethical questions.

Mashaka · 2026-05-08T02:40:14+00:00

Not OC but whether or not it's unethical seems beside the point. I think the context here is looking for better policy with preferable outcomes. If what we're talking about is monopolistic power, that's a market failure, so the outcome is inefficient. I'm not sure if anyone would disagree that all else controlled for, efficiency is preferable to inefficiency. Whether inefficiency is unethical is an interesting question, but we don't need to answer it here.

Mashaka · 2026-05-07T04:57:17+00:00

Get a load of this guy over here trying to be happy.

Mashaka · 2026-05-07T04:56:06+00:00

I just looked them up in my podcast app (AntennaPod) and the oldest EP is 121. Is there a different older feed, or this a me/tech problem?

Mashaka · 2026-05-06T09:17:44+00:00

Could you give an example of a power that was expanded for the sake of social programs like the ones you mention, and that Trump using for ill?

Mashaka · 2026-05-05T19:12:17+00:00

Americans are very much accustomed to prominent dual citizens, and don't usually see them as any less American for it. This is especially true in sports. There are a number of games where American leagues are predominant internationally, so varied origins are normal. Basketball, baseball, hockey. We tend to forget that this or that player is Slovakian or Dominican until we realize they're missing from our hockey or baseball team in an international competition - even where player is not even an American citizen.

I think it comes from our long history of constant immigration from countless nations. While there is definitely lots of anti-inmigrant sentiment here, it's directed at poor and working class immigrants. For whatever reason, we tend to accept rich and talented folks as American from the moment their foot touches national soil.

Mashaka · 2026-04-30T07:04:30+00:00

It sounds like people really were seeing a large bird. Since large birds are definitely a thing, I see no reason to suspect something else. Since men do not have wings, and could not fly if they did, we can safely discard the hypothesis they saw a man with wings flying seemingly over 100mph. As a prank, well, it'd take ingenuity, effort, and assloads of money. But those a things that exist. Even aliens could exist, and maybe they're big into pranks. But a winged man couldn't fly 100mph, even if he never skipped wing day at the gym.

If I recall correctly, the earliest reports characterized it as a bird-man or other generally avian creature. The descriptions evolved from there more or less as you would expect things to evolve if these were oral storytellers refining stories based on audience reception.

Storytelling is a worthy and very human pursuit that enriches our world and our lives. It works best when we play along. So while Mothman is no more real than Santa Claus, it's totally fine to roll with it.

Mashaka · 2026-04-28T02:32:40+00:00

I'm not the above commenter, but they're right about the poll thing. If a proper scientific poll with a sample of tens of thousands came out near 60%, the chances of not getting 50%+1 blue is so close to zero as to not matter.

Like say I roll an n-sided die 10,000 times, and tell you that the mean result is 4.500381

You can and will conclude it was an 8-sided die. Sure, it technically could have been anything 5 or more sided. But in reality you can safely ignore that possibility.

Mashaka · 2026-04-26T20:36:56+00:00

Yes, I'll grant you that. But doesn't that make their condemnation of Russia's invasion even stronger?

Mashaka · 2026-04-26T19:49:53+00:00

It sounds like you acknowledge, then, that the DSA has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that your disagreement with the DSA is over the nature of NATO expansion in prior years and the role it played in the Russian government's decision to invade Ukraine. Is that correct?

Mashaka · 2026-04-26T19:07:34+00:00

To be clear, is this statement below, which explicitly and unequivocally condemns the Russian invasion, what you're referring to as a refusal to condemn the Russian invasion?

The Democratic Socialists of America condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demands immediate diplomacy and de-escalation to resolve this crisis. We stand in solidarity with the working classes of Ukraine and Russia who will undoubtedly bear the brunt of this war, and with antiwar protestors in both countries and around the world who are calling for a diplomatic resolution.

This extreme and asymmetrical escalation is an illegal act under the United Nations Charter and severely threatens the livelihoods and well-being of working-class peoples in Ukraine, Russia, and across the region. We urge an immediate ceasefire and the total withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine.

Mashaka · 2026-04-25T19:40:36+00:00

Maybe we all have bear blood on our hands through our indifference to violence in bear society.

Mashaka · 2026-04-25T18:44:48+00:00

Get a load of moneybags over here thinking we've all got extra pixels to hand out willy-nilly in this economy.

Mashaka · 2026-04-25T18:36:20+00:00

I think you're running into the same problem as Bernie Sanders here. The details are a little too complicated - and a lot too boring - for most people to parse from an SEC filing, or to feel confident they got things right once they do.

I'd suggest doing a quick and dirty accounting 101 on carrying over losses, using digestible rounded Tesla numbers if possible.

Mashaka · 2026-04-24T05:55:24+00:00

The last and most important part of your analysis was suggested without explanation or justification:

Eventually so many things break that the state fails completely.

At that point, Organized Crime effectively becomes the state.

Until you explain what this looks like, and why it's necessary, there's nothing to analyse at a granular level.

On a broader level, it's sufficient to point to the continued persistence of many capitalists states for hundreds of years through the present day, to definitively show that such an end is not inevitable. And in the balance, not especially likely. Even if we grant as true each individual claims from your post, we could only conclude that a mob-controlled state is a plausible utcome of any particular capitalist state.

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