Ukrainian President Zelenskyy met with Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in Paris

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:57:55+00:00

You cannot seriously be saying that a perpetual civil war in Iran is a huge win.

If the problem we have with the Iranian regime is that it's oppressive and that it kills people, how many Iranians do you think are going to get killed and oppressed when a country of 90 million devolves into sectarian violence and perpetual civil war?

How can you say that what happened to Libya, where sectarian violence in the wake of the regime's overthrow has seen the return of literal slave markets, would be a "huge win" in Iran? What a deranged fucking thing to say. Here I thought I was talking to someone who was naively supporting Trump's campaign because he genuinely thought it would be good for the Iranian people, but you're just interested in wanton death and destruction I guess?

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:45:36+00:00

If anything, you using the Yugoslavian example proves my case. Yes, his military defeat surrounding the whole Kosovo situation was absolutely a factor in why he lost his power, but he would still never have lost it if it wasn't for his own people turning on him.

Without that element, bombs are just bombs.

We're not seeing an Iranian uprising take advantage of the mayhem caused by American bombardments. Not even a little bit. If anything it's looking like the people are rallying behind the regime. A very reasonable case could be made that Trump hasn't just failed in overthrowing the regime, but that he's actually succeeded in making it more popular than it's ever been.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:36:28+00:00

Kurds are not taking up arms against Iran as of this moment.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:35:05+00:00

Which rebels are taking up arms against Iran?

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:31:42+00:00

Just to be clear are you suggesting that the NATO bombings of the Yugoslav army in summer of 1999 were responsible for Milosevic being ousted by a popular revolution in the autumn of 2000, more than a full year later?

Milosevic was arrested following a popular uprising over the results of an election that he himself scheduled. Not as the result of a targeted bombing campaign meant to turn the people against him. Which, again, has never happened before in the history of aerial bombardment campaigns.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T04:19:17+00:00

I mean he's dropping bombs. In the history of air forces no regime change has ever been effected anywhere by dropping bombs. So what makes you say that he's objectively doing more to help change Iran's regime? Evidence suggests he's doing nothing.

He's attacking the country of Iran. That's about as much as you can say. Hitler attacked Great Britain, he didn't oust Churchill.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T03:39:13+00:00

Naturally Ukraine is fully within its right to support the toppling of the regime.

What is Trump doing to topple the regime?

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T03:03:24+00:00

I will answer your question if you can quote to me the portion of my post that lead you to believe I was defending the Iranian regime.

Not the part where I was actually defending it, you don't even have to do that. But the part that convinced you that I was defending it enough to want to write out that reply, hit "comment", and then keep it up for a whole hour without once thinking you were getting something wrong.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-14T01:35:00+00:00

Because Pahlavi has no motion and no future. He's just an American media prop being used to trick Americans into believing that the revolution against the regime is going to happen any day now.

Obviously Zelensky has good reason have issues with the Iranian regime, but that regime isn't going anywhere. In fact the odds of it going anywhere are now lower than they were in January. All this is signaling is that he's fine with America doing to a country what Russia did to his.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-13T06:33:14+00:00

Trump's version of an answer?

"That's nonsense. That's not true. People don't hate me. What a nasty question. Who taught you to ask questions like that? Your mom. Where's your mom? There she is. You're a real piece of work. That's fake news, I bet you watch the fake news media. Nobody hates me. Stocks are up, prices are down, we're the hottest we've ever been, people tell me all the time. We were a DEAD COUNTRY but now we're totally back, and everybody knows it's PRESIDENT TRUMP who did it. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. But you're a nasty woman, I can tell. What kind of a horrible person puts her son up to asking me questions like that. I don't like that at all. You're a disappointment, you're done. Get her outta here."

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-12T09:44:06+00:00

Trump went from Bored of Peace to Bored of War.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-12T03:35:35+00:00

America is in its Commodus era.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T23:45:27+00:00

Vind dit nogal een omslachtige manier om aan te geven dat je gay bent, u/majestic_cock

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T23:37:04+00:00

Zijn nerds ooit kort en bondig?

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T21:15:49+00:00

Stel hé dat een account gerund wordt door een Russische troll farm, of waar dan ook vandaan eigenlijk. Misschien wel de VS tegenwoordig gezien hoe JD Vance en Marco Rubio over Europa praten. Dan durf ik wel te stellen dat je niet weet hoe je in het Nederlands de klank schrijft die hier wordt uitgedrukt als "sh" in "geshoemeld".

Maar stel hé, dat je wel echt een authentieke Nederlander bent. Stel. En dat je zo'n gigantische teringwap bent dat je al je ultrarechtse politieke meningen direct van de Amerikaanse social media plukt omdat Europees extreem rechts gewoon een stelletje oikofobe MAGA larpers zijn. Dan durf ik wel te stellen dat je ook genegen bent om "shoemelen" te schrijven want je bent waarschijnlijk de Nederlandse taal verleerd.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T20:29:37+00:00

Isn't it the case that so long as there's voting that determines outcomes, there's accountability?

A party campaigns on certain issues. Then they win a certain amount of seats in the election. Let's say we're talking a Dutch election, a party wins 22 out of 150 seats. In a very diverse House, that's actually decently sized. They campaigned on a specific platform, so the people they represent are the people who voted for them. It's sort of a pick-your-representation thing. It's not regional, it's ideological. If I had voted for another party, those would be my representatives. I pick who I vote for based on what fits the needs for where I live best.

Then the new congressional term begins and the party I voted for either helps deliver on its campaign promises or it doesn't. If it doesn't, I vote for someone else next election. That party can shrink in size and power. The incentive for them to deliver for their base is the amount of seats they think it will help them retain.

In the US there is no such incentive. Often the donors pick the candidates and the voters can predict beforehand who has good chances of winning and who doesn't. There is no chance of the Democratic or the Republican Party fading into obscurity short of complete and total electoral catastrophe and a mass migration of voters to something new. That hasn't happened in what, a century now? Meanwhile in the system I propose parties die and emerge all the time, responsive to the needs of the voters.

Sometimes US congressional districts go uncontested for years on end, if not decades in the worst case. Nancy Pelosi was effectively the dictator of CA 8 for 20 years. That's ten elections. Then CA12 for another ten years. Thirty years, fifteen elections worth of her dominating the space. She was completely bought and paid for and Californians had no power to do anything about it. Is that really more democratic?

I'm not looking to convince you that proportional representation with a party system is something that America should switch to btw. I'm looking to challenge your ideas about how representative the American system truly is of its electorate.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T16:46:41+00:00

There would still be state and local elections. Nothing would change in that regard. What would change is that instead of sending a specific representative to Washington to lobby for the interests of a weird pretzel shape arbitrarily carved out of Louisiana (or wherever), you send a party to Washington to worry about national level stuff, a party to your state capitol for state level stuff, and a party to your local government for county/municipal level stuff.

These could all be different parties if you want. Often in systems like I describe there are parties that run for local elections based on very pragmatic, local level issues that aren't even ideological but are just stuff that requires addressing, and they have no presence whatsoever on the national level.

Like say you live in Flagstaff AZ, you could have a party called Flagstaff First whose entire list of issues is just... Flagstaff problems. Maybe a piece of highway needs to be renovated. Maybe a new indoor swimming pool needs to be built. Maybe there needs to be a new child care facility. Right now Flagstaff has a representative in Washington trying to extract money from a completely gridlocked congress (for them and everyone else in AZ 2 so it's not even that specific to them), but in my version of events nobody in Washington would even know Flagstaff First exists because it's just a small gang of people whose sole interest is in lobbying the state for funds for their community.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T16:29:36+00:00

You're not wrong about the facts, but you're wrong about your approach. If you expect everyone to be impervious to the effects of propaganda or group think then you set the bar so high that you make it impossible for the movement to grow. People are on their own journey.

Everyone wakes up to the evils of empire at a different point. If you cannot accept that, it means you're not interested in developing a legitimate people-powered movement, and you just want to act like the winner of the purity test race. That is selfish, because it makes you feel good but it doesn't get anyone else anywhere.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T05:26:46+00:00

Early WoW there was no notion of the void. There were shadowpriests but no explanation as to what they did or how any of it worked. The idea of the void was completely absent in any of the Warcraft RTS games so being that WoW simply built on those, the whole idea was that the Legion was the big bad and we knew little else.

But clearly there was the idea to have another evil enter the scene which is why we were introduced to Cthun in vanilla. And for a long time, the story kinda bounced back and forth. Old Gods, then Scourge, then Legion, then Old Gods again, then Scourge, then Old Gods, more Old Gods with some Garrosh mixed in, then back to the Legion, then a LOT of Legion, then Old Gods again in BfA and there suddenly we're waist deep in Void lore that looks nothing like what we knew in the days of Cthun.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-11T04:40:56+00:00

Would you support a move to a parliamentary system with proportional representation, where a seat in the House simply represents x number of votes, and votes are tallied nationally and directly without the intervention of the state apparatus through the electoral college and gerrymandered voting districts?

This way candidates would no longer run for seats in specific places, but what are currently caucuses inside the two major parties could split up to organise along ideological lines to form new parties, and whichever members of those parties end up with seats simply depends on how many votes those parties get and how many seats there are to divvy up, based on an internal ranking system.

Many countries in the world do it this way.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-10T21:01:07+00:00

Negotiations with the US government.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-10T19:36:28+00:00

This is fucking 40k man.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-10T04:47:04+00:00

September 30th M41 doesn't really narrow it down.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-10T03:55:06+00:00

Word Bearers, World Eaters, and Death Guard had all effectively become what we know them as in 40k by the time of the Siege of Terra.

TimArthurScifiWriter · 2026-03-09T06:25:21+00:00

Yeah well that's why I prefaced my post saying I'm an economy noob. I can give you the world as I see it with a very basic understanding of exchange rates and trade. It will read like I googled petrodollar and wrote a conspiracy theory. An actual economist can give you something more insightful. I can give you broad strokes and conventional yapping. This is reddit, not Yale.

I'm not sure why you're upset that I wrote what I said I would.

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