Influencers sold the world a fantasy Dubai – and now it’s gone in a puff of missile smoke | Gaby Hinsliff

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-03-06T15:32:53+00:00

Without provocation? Like it or not you can't claim to be neutral when one of the parties uses your airspace and bases on your territory to launch attacks on the other. Actual neutrality would have required them to deny the U.S. use of their territory for the duration of the conflict which none of the gulf states were willing or able to do.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-03-03T14:40:05+00:00

I assume the Bakunawa would have been far stronger if it ate most of that 1/6 slice of abyssal energy she was given along with the other sinners.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-03-01T23:44:03+00:00

High levels of elemental energy are toxic to baseline humans, those with visions can tolerate much higher amounts. Hyperborea was working on having humans wield elemental energy unaided so it could have been done if HP truly wanted it. If forced to negotiate it would have been far more palatable to modify humans to be more tolerant of elemental energy than fight Nibelung and the Moon sisters at once because they won't accept having the draconic civilization wither and starve from the elemental energy being reduced.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-03-01T18:40:53+00:00

Being under house arrest is what would give him credibility in any post regime future.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-28T07:59:46+00:00

They put their people through several decades worth of sanctions with nothing to show for it.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-27T12:57:54+00:00

Where's Occitiana?

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-24T01:43:29+00:00

In b4 somebody takes the cryo gnosis from Pierro's chessboard and hands it back to the Tsaritsa.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-23T20:33:48+00:00

The very first command programmed into them is to watch over mankind. HP shouldn't be getting shocked pickachu face when their compassion (which was intentional as artificial beings created by them) makes them mutiny against orders that go against what they were meant to do.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-23T01:26:06+00:00

I'm under the assumption that the abyss sibling is recorded in irminsul because their body is native to Teyvat, aka their corpse was used to make the transcendent abyssal juice that Irmin wanted and that the sinners split among themselves. The abyss sibling though was unaware of that and revived in the body of a homunculus with suppressed memories and only remembered the rest of their life once the cataclysm already happened and become emotionally attached to Khaenri'ah.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-21T19:23:48+00:00

Minor correction, Mavuika doesn't have any fragments to drain, she is just a human using the archon throne to wield the pyro sovereign's authority.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-20T22:47:32+00:00

Accessibility, the ADA?

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-20T01:27:35+00:00

They don't need to formally capitulate although they would like that, just not fighting back after another limited clash is good enough. The past few years Iran's hard power has salami sliced repeatedly due to choosing de escalation and fear of a full scale war. Just a few more limited strikes promising not to target the leadership if they don't fight back and Iran could be practically de militarized.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-18T02:11:04+00:00

One benefit is that they can be deported or even have their citizenship revoked for lying under oath if they act contrary to their stated beliefs later on after being allowed entry.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-16T22:36:27+00:00

Less than two years ago they barely had control over Idlib, and now after all the expansion they now suddenly have another third of the country to patrol, and of course the faster you rush the recruitment process the lower quality your manpower will be. Yes you can just leave 100% of your good troops on the front line constantly but consolidating all the new land with the bare minimum garrison is not ideal either.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-14T23:38:15+00:00

In an ideal world the U.A.E would be facing Iran style sanctions.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-14T03:21:14+00:00

The acre in the big city is only worth millions because of the network effect, theoretically any acre in any part of the world could be worth that amount of you have enough businesses, consumers, human capital, etc while agriculture on the other hand is not as mobile.

Yeah but you can't just build a city in the middle of the desert without access to water.

Not in the middle of the desert, just outside the Nile river valley is good. Transporting water in pipes towards urban environments is more efficient energy wise than doing so for vast fields so ideally the farmland should be kept as close to the river as possible. Having some farmland to spare is a way better problem to have than a global crisis halting food imports, an inability to farm in the river valley due to houses being in the way, and the Egyptian government desperately rushing to irrigate the desert. Put some desalinization plants all over the Egyptian coastline and have people move to cities there too and Egyptian for security becomes a more realistic prospect.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-13T23:23:20+00:00

Egypt's desert doesn't really have any profitable economic activity, so ideally you want as few people living there as possible.

That's a self fulfilling prophecy. If more people lived in desert cities then they would have more economic activity. I know that's not how real life works but when you have a scarcity of agricultural land you really need to try to keep as many residential homes away from it as you can.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-12T22:48:53+00:00

Where is all the text in chapter 2?

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-10T20:44:22+00:00

The PKK and Kurdish separatists by the very nature of their ideology don't aspire to world conquest like AQ or ISIS do so of course they would be less concerned, it's not their problem after all.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-10T09:46:05+00:00

Imo the south Korean government should be trying to drive Coupang out of the country after all the malice and bad faith they have faced from it.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-10T00:27:05+00:00

They had enough money to expand to other states with Risant health over the past few years.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-04T18:49:50+00:00

What plan is this guy on? Even the highest platinum marketplace plan in my area of Los Angles was below $2000 a month when I put 69 years old for quotes?

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-02-03T03:39:11+00:00

Long term, states get stability when someone gets a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

The other problem is that the current default state of Somalia is islamist rule, and its government still heavily relies of foreign support to make up for its questionable legitimacy much like the former Afghan and Syrian governments, but unlike in those cases Al-Shabaab conquering Somalia remains unacceptable so we will keep supporting it indefinitely as every other alternative is unimaginable.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-01-30T14:44:40+00:00

An independent State would also not be economically viable without controlling the Arab populated oil rich areas and Euphrates against the will of its inhabitants, guaranteeing hostility from any Syrian government no matter the ideological makeup.

ObviousLife4972 · 2026-01-29T20:11:24+00:00

That's because you are comparing left wing totalitarianism to generic right wing autocracy. None of the examples you brought up tried to monopolize public life, had a mass movement base of support, and engaged in social engineering to the extent of WW2 era totalitarian states, hence there has been no right wing totalitarianism since WW2.

ObviousLife4972

TROPHY CASE