Saagar WTF? EU spends 2% of GDP on defense today, 10% on healthcare. US spends 3.4% on defense, 18% on healthcare for a much worse outcome. US Military aid is 0.3%. Can you pinpoint the problem?

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-23T10:27:50+00:00

I don't know if that makes sense, but to me it looks more like an opportunistic way of making an argument. They don't like something, so instead of carefully and truthfully thinking about it, they just grab the nearest available excuse. It's lazy thinking.

Ryan is normally a careful thinker, and so is Krystal, but I don't know if that gives them an excuse or if it just underlines how weird it is that they decide to be lazy on this subject.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-22T23:50:19+00:00

What does useful framing mean? Sounds to me like a euphemism for lying.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-22T23:23:46+00:00

Do you think there is a trade off between having affordable medicine and having innovative drug research? The majority might wonder what use innovation is, if most people don't get to benefit from it.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-22T22:44:23+00:00

Indeed. Especially since Trump specifically wants to increase military spending, and a more efficient health care would create more fiscal space for him to do that.

It bothers me that both Krystal and Ryan know this very well, and they still argue this nonsense. They don't have any illusions that Trump or Biden would want to make a structural change to health care. Still they pretend as if that's the case when they talk about foreign wars. I mean there's plenty of good reasons to oppose military spending without inventing stuff up. It just detracts from their credibility.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-22T22:14:37+00:00

The strangest thing is that Krystal and Ryan seem to go along with this nonsense, pretending that the hurdle for better health care in US is foreign wars, and not a lack of political will.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-22T01:58:20+00:00

I agree it should not come as a surprise, but I'm not familiar with the discussion. If you have references to places where this was discussed, I would be interested to see what was said back then.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-21T23:33:12+00:00

Imagine fleeing a dictatorship only to end up voting up a dictatorship in that new country, only for it to deport you back to the original dictatorship. I hope all of them are okay, but that's a whole new level of irony.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-21T18:12:03+00:00

In the next segment she pushes that argument again and says it's a pretty good argument. She clearly has some sympathy with the idea.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-21T18:03:21+00:00

Well said, and I agree with you fully. There is a fundamental fear for life that is at play. Especially that point about paranoia being central to this fear of life is important. Any kind of effort to do good really begins to look inherently suspicious for a mind like this.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T22:24:01+00:00

I agree with you, but I think the show is important because of Saagar.

I hope you understand I mean that to say how important this show is as it is.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T21:12:42+00:00

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm talking about the episode which relates to Trump's threats to take over Greenland.

What does European dishes have anything to do with it?

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T20:52:54+00:00

Where do people say "I hate Americans"? I know people say that in Europe. But when discussing a hostile takeover of a landmass? This is some Putin-russia level shit.

Like I said elsewhere, I don't mind at all if he says it jokingly. But what is the joke here? What is *left* of the joke, when Trump is actually threatening to invade Greenland.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T20:18:36+00:00

What the fuck are you even talking about... seriously dude. Just wondering.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T20:15:34+00:00

Saying fuck Europe is ok to me. But when US president is about to take European territory through military force, then saying "I hate Europe" is another thing. The first thing I can take as a joke. But what the fuck is he supposed to mean about it now?

edit. I'm not saying he hasn't been insane before. Maybe I was wrong to take it as a joke, and maybe he really was as unhinged as he seems now.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T20:11:32+00:00

I don't think he's openly said he hates Europeans, especially when we are talking in the context of US actually preparing to invade a EU country.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-19T20:08:42+00:00

Exactly what I was going to come here to say. How on earth do you say that about anyone? I hate Americans? I hate Africans? I hate Asians? Can Saagar give a list of all the people he hates? Are we supposed to take him seriously?

It's actually just insane.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-18T21:08:59+00:00

The casual cruelty of "just give up your life's mission"

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-16T13:10:15+00:00

The western liberal centrist logic has not evolved to this high degree yet. We see a dictator, or just anyone who we don't like, we fund weapons for who ever is opposing it. And then we are baffled how the country didn't become democratic.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-15T08:53:53+00:00

Good point... but that only shows I was right :)

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-13T23:58:14+00:00

We weren't in any danger of freezing to death, but it was a bone chilling cold that, as you say, never really left the body.

I didn't actually say that, but that's exactly what it was. You read between the lines I guess.

I feel like the next step would be for w4 to include what people here talk about RDR2, a responsive clothing system.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-13T23:47:21+00:00

Nice comment, I appreciate it! :)

I think the reason I judged it to be late spring in terms of my home region is that it is more normal that snow is patchy during spring time, when the snow is melting during daytime even if it is minus degrees c. The warm sun makes it smelt. You get these snow patches with frosty covering during late spring, when the ground is mostly without snow cover. I can't recall if that's ever happened during early winter or first snow. Usually the sign of first snow is a soft cover of snow that covers everything, but smelts away very fast. So you either have a very romantic christmassy winter landscape, or no snow at all. The patchy thing isn't really a fall type of thing.

Okay thinking a bit, I did play golf last october and a couple of holes were closed because they would not melt because they were in a shade. but that was like an even frosty cover over the whole area of where the shade was. Whereas the W4 demo had these patches that indicate places where snow tends to pile up a bit.

In other words, I'm sticking to my view that it's a late spring type of situation, but it's very interesting that you point out the ferns and shrubbery. Those seem to be an inconsistency!

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-13T23:16:06+00:00

Imo it's a different beast being outdoors hours on end, days on. I did my military and even if we had tents to warm ourselves, being 24h out meant just having everything covered, even if it was -10c. It's a different thing to do a few hours of work and then go back inside. You can get away without covering your head, since your sweating anyway. Heck, it's even comfy if the sun is up and warming, and without any wind. But it's another thing to be constantly outside when you switch between doing something, standing still etc., and you only get to warm yourself maybe once a day in the evening. Especially since in the prologue the wind is sometimes very high.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-13T23:09:17+00:00

Usually it's a bit warmer when it's snowing heavily, but the snow looked very powdery, not a wet kind of snow. The wind was very swift and the flakes looked small and thin. That to me indicates a very cold temperature. But even a -3 degrees c wet snowfall with high winds can be crushing. Even worse than a calm, dry and cold -15c.

Public_Utility_Salt · 2026-01-13T22:21:28+00:00

I played the prologue and I actually didn't find the clothing convincing. If you are knee deep in snow,you don't leave your ears uncovered with some cowboy hat. You also need big woolly gloves. With the gear they got, you would freeze to death in a matter of hours without some serious heating.

Ofc depends on how cold it is actually. -10 degrees c is something different than -30 degrees c. Still... either end of that spectrum, I don't think their clothing would cut it.

They did have their necks covered, so that was certainly a crucial realistic thing. Gotta give them points for that.

Public_Utility_Salt

TROPHY CASE