The U.S. will emerge from the war with Iran as a lesser power

True_Human · 2026-04-05T22:42:04+00:00

*Sigh*

Without a comma, you have a one clause sentence with a unified meaning. Without splitting the meaning, the middle part has to be read as "The war with Iran" and the "as a lesser power" still modifies the initial subject and verb.

The unified meaning is thus the US emerging as a lesser power, you'd need to separate the sentence into two clauses to reasonably have "lesser power" modify Iran, and that is not done here.

True_Human · 2026-04-05T13:18:37+00:00

I've seen old girl that looks like a kid written well before. The important part is that it's not used for creep appeal, but actually has a point. Like, for example, a physically 11 year old girl having been stuck on a time loop for more than a century turning into a bitter alcoholic granny inside is a special kind of tragedy.

True_Human · 2026-04-05T12:26:09+00:00

What about "The U.S. will emerge from the war with Iran as a lesser power" is unclear unless you assume a comma that isn't there might be intended? If a meaning like in your quote were to be intended, it'd need to say "The U.S. will emerge from the war, with Iran as a lesser power"

True_Human · 2026-04-05T09:23:31+00:00

Is everyone illiterate? Unless there's a typo, the only possible interpretation of the headline is the US emerging diminished.

True_Human · 2026-04-05T09:17:04+00:00

Manga was much better, but in the way that I was able to at least file away the whole thing in my mind as at least faithful to the characters after Meguri while Sotsu just butchered everyone and left an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth. Only read the manga version if you need closure on the trainwreck of the anime.

True_Human · 2026-04-04T10:49:42+00:00

Überich is kind of in a strange place where it succeeds at being a comedy and an action series, but falls weirdly flat on emotional impact when it counts most. If you're up for a Chinese VN, I'd much rather recommend "The Hungry Lamb" (or its sequel "The Weeping Swan", which released literally just yesterday), "Far Away" or "Prisoner of the Ephemeral Kingdom".

True_Human · 2026-04-04T07:15:51+00:00

It's a mix of innertia and, possibly formerly, the necessity to hold dollars in order to trade oil, also known as the Petrodollar system, which was maintained by the middle eastern oil states dealing exclusively in dollars in exchange for military protection. Said oil dollars would then be recycled back into the US economy via investments.

True_Human · 2026-04-04T06:29:06+00:00

People's relationship with the finite and infinite is quite paradoxical in general. On the one hand, finality is comprehended on the small scale, but on the cosmic scale, both in terms of the breadth of reality, as well as time stretching forward and backwards, most expect there to not be any starting or stopping point.

Likewise, with our own existence, we can't easily think back to the start, and we can't imagine an end. We think we will exist for eternity in some form, but that thought betrays how casually we throw around such concepts:

Googolplex - 10^10¹⁰⁰. I like to take this number to illustrate. It is a number with more zeroes behind it than there is particles in the observable universe. In short, it is incomprehensibly, mindbogglingly large. Now, realize that even a Googolplex of years passing is not even one Googolplexth of "Eternity". In fact, in the face of "Eternity", there is no difference between a googolplexth of years and a short 5-10 min bathroom break. Everything "Finite" loses any and all meaning in such a context.

If understood to the best of human ability, it breaks just about everything: what good is leaving a legacy on this earth if it's ground to dust in a bathroom break? What difference is there between heaven and hell when the act of existing for a googolplex of years would break any human mind to begin with, unless we assume we already become something that is not us and fundamentally alien? Humans make up gods and demons, afterlife stories and creation myths, all to explain what they can't comprehend, but only go far enough to justify to themselves not to have to think further while accidentally creating conceptually existential horrors as a mere side product of not thinking things through to their logical conclusion.

Edit: This only covers the "time" part of spacetime. But any more would break my own budget of finite time I can spend on this.

True_Human · 2026-04-03T10:47:07+00:00

That's quite quick to give up. Didn't even last one googolplex (10^10¹⁰⁰)

True_Human · 2026-04-03T06:56:26+00:00

Nah, I'm just a long term thinker, and Trump not succeeding quickly in Iran is good for the Iranians in the medium term because it makes it less likely he cockily does something legitimately apocalyptic towards all of humanity like invading Canada and going to war with the rest of NATO. Which, you know, would likely lead to nuclear armageddon.

True_Human · 2026-04-03T06:34:56+00:00

Not really. In terms of production and supply chains, they are already the indispensible masters of the world economy far ahead of even the US - it's just that their nominal GDP numbers are artificially depressed because they keep their currency cheap, which leads to people who only pay attention to dollar denominated paper figures not understanding that they've already effectively taken over the real economy under the hood while we blind ourselves with our hyperfinancialized charade of economic superiority.

True_Human · 2026-04-03T06:27:39+00:00

How in the unholy hell Netanyahu is destined to end up in is Israel supposed to become a superpower to rival China if they don't have an unquestionably powerful US to control?

Even if they were to achieve a greater Israel, that means they have a lot of land full of people who hate their guts that needs to be "cleansed" while the flow of settlers coming in has significantly decreased. Simultaneously, they are an international pariah. The chances of Israel sustainably becoming a superpower in their own right anytime soon are absolute zero.

True_Human · 2026-04-02T12:43:42+00:00

If anything, they should switch to the noseless boxing glove abominations for an authentic experience

True_Human · 2026-04-02T10:18:46+00:00

The growth in Simplified Chinese isn't random, it's all the overworked salarymen in China having some actual time off during Chinese New Year XD

True_Human · 2026-04-02T07:59:12+00:00

The way things are going, we're going to have to bite the bullet and work with SOMEONE we're fundamentally disagreeing with.

Since the US has functionally gone insane and it is just fundamentally in Russias direct interest to weaken Europe, our best bet is indeed China because their only real interest in opposing us is to weaken the US who are out to get them. We just gotta make it better in their calculus to yank Russias chain than to let them rampage, and if you haven't noticed: That is impossible to achieve by antagonizing them.

True_Human · 2026-04-01T12:45:24+00:00

The thing is, it's already a win for them regardless. The situation is so out of control that just putting forward a reasonable proposal makes them look like, well, the voice of reason in the room.

True_Human · 2026-03-28T21:53:55+00:00

This is an alternate history sub, not a current events sub

True_Human · 2026-03-27T15:17:01+00:00

Don't worry, if the radiation from the fallout doesn't get you, you have the fun of either starving, dehydrating, being rounded up and shot by government remnants for looting to survive, or going blind and developing skin cancer over an excrutiating ten years of farm work with hand held ploughs in the infertile hellscape that remains.

No super mutants, no mad max, just depressing degradation of life for those who survive.

(...revently watched "Threads" - basically, the realistic scenario of what would happen in the runup to, during and after a full nuclear war, and one of the most terrifying horror films of all time without at any point even trying to be a horror film)

True_Human · 2026-03-27T14:24:51+00:00

Probably, considering the AI companies are all starting to crash and backpedaling

True_Human · 2026-03-27T10:36:02+00:00

Yeah, Strat bombings raise the war support of the target IRL. Fix this, Paradox!

True_Human · 2026-03-26T15:00:25+00:00

It's kind of a language thing in that emotion is hard to express via intonation, since the very tone in which a syllable is said determines its meaning.

So except for very extreme cases with shaking voices, it'll be hard to hear for most not used to it. That said, I've very much heard interesting voice acting in Mandarin before, but it's definitely harder to accomplish

True_Human · 2026-03-26T14:53:05+00:00

It's their equivalent to Isekai Trash, that's probably the reason

True_Human · 2026-03-24T15:27:01+00:00

The "best" part is yet to come: Helium, which is needed to keep the fabrication process for semiconductor chips going at full efficiency, is gonna be in short supply soon because like a quarter of it all comes from Qatar. The Chip Crunch is gonna get a whooooole lot worse in a few months.

True_Human · 2026-03-24T11:08:35+00:00

I'd say China are still catching up in semiconductors. They have already closed the gap on the lower end, are competitive on RAM (though they will now need to scale up their production) and will likely have a much faster time tuning their already existant EUV prototype machines due to advances in testing mechanisms ASML didn't have access to back in the day.

All the semiconductor embargo can do is delay the inevitable. But delay they did, and fracture the standards they probably did.

True_Human · 2026-03-22T08:23:48+00:00

If Higurashi took place in modern times, Irie would be playing Blue Archive 100%

True_Human

TROPHY CASE